#the president of the university’s resignation is being called for

[lean-ground-beefro]

welcome to the stage...

a Joel Miller one shot: Flip the Switch

Pairing: CEO!Joel Miller x F!Reader Prompt from @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog:

𝕡𝕒𝕚𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕘 =Santa!Joel x elf!reader 𝕡𝕣𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕥 = you’ve been a lazy elf so Santa Joel punishes you

Summary: You've been tasked with being Joel's 'Helper Elf' at this year's Christmas Party and good god do you hate your job... Rating: Explicit 18+ (MDNI) Word Count: 3,562 Content Warning: DubCon, Smutty smutty smut smut, fingering (f receiving), p in the v - unwrapped, degradation, power plays, power imbalance, boss / employee dynamic, swiches, dom/sub dynamic, name calling, couch fucking Author's Notes: I am @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog's Secret Santa and I am so sorry for how late this is, bb! I am thankful for you and I hope you enjoy my first foray our of the chubby universe.

Thank you to @softpascalito, @theywhowriteandknowthings & @neverwheremoonchild for their eyes and beta skills. 💜🥦💜

Santa-baby-I've-been-an-swful-good-girl regards,

Beefro👌🥦💜

--------<3----------

When you’d been asked to dress as Joel’s ‘Helper Elf’ to his ‘CEO Santa’, you’d scoffed at the idea, already planning on resigning from being one of his company’s administrative assistants. You were tired of the long hours and being worked to the bone for very little pay and respect, but you decided to hold off to see the shitshow that the company’s Christmas party would be since Joel himself was in charge of planning it.

Joel was an egotistical brute who had no business being allowed to mingle with people in an enclosed space. His only saving graces were his brother, Tommy – CFO and President, and the only one who could rein him in - and his stupidly handsome, brooding good looks. He infuriated you; he knew he could get away with just about anything because he was the boss and most of the peons were scared shitless of his brutal tirades being directed at them. He threw it in almost anyone’s face how loaded he was and that he owned them. You hated him as much as you loved how quickly you came on your vibrator when though about his voice, his eyes, his hands that were burned into your memory. Fuck Joel Miller and fuck his cocky fucking smirk.

The day of the party you’d been given a cheap, sleezy looking elf costume with an email soon landing in your inbox with instructions to wear it that night, along with what your duties would be. Rolling your eyes, you read the email and realized that you would be spending the entire evening at Joel’s side, truly being his ‘Helper Elf’. You were to make sure he knew every person’s name (you rolled your eyes because if he really gave a shit about the people who worked for him, he’d already know their names), make sure he had food and a drink available to him all night (great – you were going to be a glorified personal waitress for the douchebag), make sure the event ran smoothly (as the one who apparently planned the event, why was this up to you?), had out gifts as ‘Santa’s Helper’ to the employees (groan…), and lastly, keep him company throughout the evening.

The whole thing made you rethink waiting to quit and you huffed, looking down at the cheap, probably highly flammable, elf costume on your desk.

“Fuck it.”, you groaned, picking it up and shoving it into your purse and heading to the bathroom to change.

*****

You were silently cheering yourself on. All evening, you’d made a conscious decision to be as annoying and useless as possible for Joel, and boy oh boy!, you’d gotten under his skin. Two hours into the party, and Joel had gone to get his third refill at the bar because you weren’t ‘paying attention’ and he’d also missed out on most of the buffet because you ‘forgot’ to get him a plate. You’d also managed to ‘unknowingly’ give him several wrong names, making him look like an ass towards several employees who’s names he really should have known. When it came time to hand out presents, you conveniently were ‘required’ to make yourself scarce and were unable to help.

While he’d barely said more than a few sentences to you, his scowl said everything you needed to be satisfied. At this point, you’d had more than a few drinks, and while you still maintained your professionalism, you’d stopped adjusting your skimpy elf costume and let it ride up higher on your thigh as you sat next to Joel. You’d caught him looking down at your bare lap more than once, making you grin to yourself.

*****

You had to give him his due; Joel had managed to put on a not-mediocre, standard office Christmas party. It was more than you thought he was capable of. That, and the fact that he kept the stupid Santa suit on the entire evening and posed for pictures with anyone who asked. You swear you might have even seen a genuine smile on his face when his brother came up for a picture dressed as a reindeer.

What really made you happy though was when Tommy asked Joel how his night was going, and you heard him respond, “Strapped me with a lazy fuckin’ elf, Tommy…” as his face held a cold sneer.

Right under that smile was the asshole who you’d found so much delight in needling all night.

By the time the party wrapped up, you figured you’d done your duty and you’d be free to go home and continue the party with a cheap bottle of wine and your cat. Everyone else had left and as you grabbed your bag from under the table, you heard Joel’s telltale stomps come up behind you. Before you could turn around, he had his hands on your waist, pushing you against the table.

“Think you’re bein’ cute, sugar?”, he growled into your ear.

“The fuck are you doing?!”, you snapped back, trying to wriggle out of his grasp more out of surprise than disgust.

He held you tighter, his thick fingers digging into your waist, and you could feel your panties getting wet.

“Don’t you fuckin’ move… can you follow that fuckin’ direction?”

“Oh Jesus! Just fuck off!”, you snarled back, again, trying halfheartedly to remove his hands from you, but hoping he didn’t let go.

He grunted as you shoved him back and turned around. You both stood and glared at each other, daring the other to make the first move. A small, menacing grin spread on Joel’s face as he took a few slow steps towards you.

“No one’s fucked the Christmas spirit into you yet, sugar?”, he growled, licking his lips and roughly pushing you back onto the table.

“Oh, fuck you! You couldn’t fuck a quack into a duck, you asshole.”

He raised his eyebrow at you and gave you a warning look before roughly gripping your chin and forcing you to look up at him. He brought his face close to you and stared down at you meanly.

“You’re a shitty helper elf. Don’t you dare be a shitty lay, too.”

Before you could respond, he hoisted you up on the table, shoved the skirt of your dress up around your waist and pushed his fingers against your clothed core, making you let out an involuntary moan and a buck of your hips.

“Fuckin’ sweet, sugar…”, he purred, eyeing you with a grin.

You rolled your eyes and groaned against his touch. “You’re a disgusting old man, Miller.”

“Fuck, you’ve got a nasty little mouth on you…”, he murmured with a devilish grin as he pushed your legs apart and stood between them.

You swallowed hard as he grasped your neck. His other hand’s fingers moved between you and his eyes fluttered. He groaned when he felt how wet you were through your panties.

“Fuckin’ eh, sugar…”, he cooed, returning his softer gaze towards you. “You wet for daddy?”

You sucked in a breath as he circled your covered clit with his index finger, and tried to sound as firm as you could. “Fuck off with that ‘daddy’ shit, Miller.”

He tsk’d you, griping your throat tighter. “You and your mouth, sugar…”, he chuckled, watching you squirm, then growled. “You’re gonna be begging me to be your daddy when I’m done with you.”

That was it. This man had fucked around enough with you as your boss and now he wanted to demean you like this? Pulling yourself together, you pushed his chest and shoved him off you with all your might and before he could pounce on you again, you quickly moved to the side, causing him to lean over the table.

You shoved him forward, and to your surprise, he didn’t resist. Instead, he chuckled. “What’re you gonna – “

It infuriated you that despite your rejection of him, he was still smiling and seemingly enjoying himself.

“Just shut up!”, you snarled back, snaking your hand around his front and gripping his infuriatingly impressive cock through his cheap, fuzzy red pants.

“You fuckin’ shit… you’ll never be my daddy…” You could feel him get harder as you growled into his ear. “Too fuckin’ old to even pin me down…”

“Ungh…sugar… oh fuck…”, he panted, rutting his hips and griding his cock against your hands.

The fact that Joel was getting off to your less-than-kind words was not lost on you and you scoffed.

“This how you’re gonna get off, Joel?”, you cooed coldly into his ear as he panted. “Big tough Miller gets off to girls telling him no?”

“Please… sugar… fuck… please…”

“That the best you can do? You’re pathetic, you know that?”, you snapped at him as you shoved the front of his pants down, freeing his cock.

You stood back and tugged his arm, signalling him to turn over, and when he did, his cock did not disappoint. He was huge and the head was angry and weeping. He watched your face, eyes staring in wonderment at his dick as your mouth parted, jaw going slack. He grinned and chuckled, causing your eyes to meet his, only making you angrier with him.

“Fuck you, Miller!”

“Calm down, sugar… not the first whore to get cock dumb on me…”, he cooed, still with a smug grin on his face. He reached out trying to pull your hand to his member.

You yanked your hand away and spat into your palm before gripping his cock and starting to jerk him.

“Fuck you, Miller.”, you seethed lowly. “Fuck you and your fuckin’ smug face.”

“Why you – fuck… why you so pissed, sugar?”

“You’re such a pompous dick! So fuckin’ arrogant and you’re a shit boss.”, you fumed, continuing to pump his cock, causing him to pant. “Throwin’ your money in people’s faces, not knowing their names… someone better put you on your place, Miller. After tonight, I quit, you smug fuck!”

It was like a switch flipped; he snapped out of his submissive and amused state as soon as the words left your mouth. He gripped your wrist, ripping it off his cock and sat up, his other hand going around your throat.

“I don’t think so, sugar. You’re not going anywhere.”

He stood up, holding your wrist and throat, and guided you backwards to the couch and pushed you down on it. You fell back, your legs parted, and he took advantage of this. Joel leaned over you, pushed your panties to the side, and shoved two of his thick fingers into your sopping wet cunt, causing you to yelp.

“You can take it, sugar.”, he smiled menacingly at you, then growled through clenched teeth, “And you’re gonna take it.”

He pounded up into you with one hand while the other gripped your hair in his fist. The sounds that came from your mouth were foreign to you. Yeah, you liked it rough, but this was different. This was your soon-to-be former boss, finger banging you on a couch after a Christmas party and after you’d just about had him wailing your name. You had no idea what had happened to flip him, and before you could get too deep into your thoughts, he hit the perfect spot. That sweet, spongy spot in your pussy that less than half the me you’d fucked had even accidentally grazed, and here was Joel, repeatedly hitting it like it was a doorbell it was an emergency house call.

“Oh fuck!... right th -  yes!... fuck… Joel, there… yes!”

As you felt your walls start to flutter and when that white hot heat started its ascent, he pulled away, grin on his lips.

You sat up on your elbows and looked at him, mouth open and eyes pleading. “What are y-?”

“Fuck you, that’s what.”, he grunted with a grin, shoving his slick fingers into his mouth and sucking.

You could only stare up at him in response. When he finally deemed his fingers clean, he pulled them out of his mouth with a pop and grinned at you.

“Tell you what, sugar. You take back what you said, and I’ll fuck you right here on this couch like you deserve.”

Confused, you continued to lookup at him until it dawned on you.

“You want me to not quit?”

He nodded, grin dropping from his face.

“You think I worked Tommy over to let you be my fuckin’ ‘Elf’ and put up with your bullshit attitude tonight for you to just quit on me, sugar?”, he asked lowly, leaning over you, pinning your head between his elbows.

“Think I haven’t watched that fuckin’ body of yours sashay ‘round the office and had to fuck my fist when I finally got alone?”, he crooned is a husky whisper, pressing his hot mouth on your neck and alternating between licking and nipping your skin. “Think I don’t notice your ass in those skintight skirts and imagine you sittin’ on my face?”

You let out a moan and gripped his shoulders, trying to pull him further into you. He quickly pulled back and sat up on his knee packed between your open legs, and grabbed your hands.

“I’m not hearin’ what I need to, sugar…”

You were frustrated and needy, hating that he had gotten the upper hand on you. Stubbornly, you shook your head.

“Fuck you, Miller. You’re a shit boss and a shit person and I’m not gonna let you fuck around and get nothin’ in return!”

His eyes darkened and his frown hardened into a scowl. He gripped your chin, pulling you up to him as he leaned down to you, feeling his hot breath on your face.

“Listen here, you little bitch. If that’s what you really want, I’ll send you outta here with my fuckin’ bastard in your belly whether you like it or not as a reminder of what you fucked up.”, he growled, holding you stare as if to challenge you.

You could feel your slick flowing from you, dripping out of your cunt and down your crack. Your mind and body were screaming ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in a pathetic battle with themselves at his threat.

“Or…”, his tone softened, as did his grip on your chin, “you can stay and get a promotion.’”

Your face morphed from pleading to confused again. “A-a promotion?”

“A promotion?”, he mocked. ”Yeah, sugar. A fuckin’ promotion.”

He lazily dragged his hand down your body, slipping it between your legs again and into your panties, and began rubbing small, light circles around your clit. You shifted, brows folding as you fought to keep your breath steady and eyes on him, refusing to break again and beg him again.

“You’re good at your job, and I agree… you don’t get enough for all your hard work. How ‘bout this, baby… you work exclusively for me… be my girl here… my helper elf all year round – minus the shitty, bratty attitude you came here tonight with – and I pay you what you’re worth…”

It took all your strength to not cave right then and there, but you were stubborn. “A personal cocksleeve for the office? How fuckin’ charming.”, you snapped back, in a voice far shakier and breathier than you had hoped it would be.

Joel smiled and chuckled darkly, continuing to tease your clit.

“You keep actin’ like you don’t want this, sugar, but my hand can feel your poor little pussy throbbin’ and needin’ me… and I’m sure your bank account would appreciate my attention as well.”

“Fuck you.”

“I plan on it, baby.”, he grinned menacingly. “But I gotta know how you want it… one last fuck… or…”

He nudged his nose against yours.

“My own, personal, little sugar… who’s so good at her job… and can keep me in my place when she wants… get me on my knees and make me beg… and let me fuck her into submission when I need it.”

When you tried to push up against him, he held you in place, keeping his fingers in your folds and his face close to yours in an act of dominance.

“No… I’m the boss right now, sugar, and I asked you a question. I expect an answer.”

You couldn’t help the whimper that crept out of your throat and that was all Joel needed. He kissed you, softly at first then increasing the fervour, prying your mouth open with his lips and tongue. Teeth and spit helping your faces mash together.  The hand he had between your legs moved to his waistband and he pulled it down, again, freeing his cock then gripping it. He pulled back slightly and slid its thick head through your slick.

“Tell me you want it, sugar…”, he grunted, looking at you from under heavy eyelids.

“Fuck…”, you breathed out, your pussy clenching on nothing. “I… of fuckin’ course I want it!”

“Ask nicely, sugar. Drop the attitude.”

“Fuck… please… please, Joel! I want it… I want you… I wanna be… fuck you for making me say it… I wanna get that promoti – aah!.”

Before the last syllable could come from your mouth, Joel pushed your panties aside and shoved his cock into your heat, giving no grace period for you to adjust.

“S’what I thought, sugar.”, he huffed out in a grin.

“Please… oh fuck, please move, Joel!”

“Yeah? Why? ‘Cause your pussy’s too tight for me? ‘Cause you haven’t been fucked by a man with a big dick and bank account?”, he cooed, tilting his hips to push further into you, his tip pressed firmly against your cervix.

“Fuck! Yes… please!”, you yelped, squirming under him. All thoughts of trying to take any control back were being forced out of you by his dick and he knew it.

His smug grin stayed firmly on his face as he pulled out in a painfully slow movement before slamming back in, pushing you further up the couch. He grabbed your hips and held you as he did it again.

“Faster… faster, Joel…”

He shook his head, still grinning. “Uh-uh…”

He kept his slow exit, harsh entry going as he watched your face contort and your cunt clench and release him. You were sure he was just torturing you, but the way he looked down at your face and body mixed with the even pace he was keeping and his size, you knew he knew what he was doing. You could feel the heat building up again, and he could, too.

“That’s it, sugar… I can feel it… come on, baby… lemme have it…”

The wave of your first orgasm hit you, rippling through your body and pulling a long, loud moan from your mouth.

“Oh, good girl!… finally, takin’ directions… good girl…”

He let you start to come down before he picked up your foot, placed a kiss on your ankle and draped it over his shoulder.

“That’s right, sugar… did so good for me, now I’m gonna return the favour.”

He thrusted into you harshly and picked up the speed, forcing your spend out onto both your thighs and his curly thatch of salt and pepper hair that crowned his cock. He pummelled you over and over, bringing you to the cusp of another orgasm and pulled out.

“Turn around… on your knees, sugar.”, he grunted, swatting at you.

You had to fight your trembling body and shaky legs to move, but once you got up on your knees on the couch, back facing Joel, he took over and moved your body into position.

“Now I get it, baby… you behave when you know you’re gettin’ something…”, he chuckled, pushing your face against the cushioned headrest. “Gonna have to get a reward system in place… give you a gold star and a fuck when you do good…”

Before you could return a snappy comeback, he pushed his cock back into you, making the only sound your mouth could produce be a whine.

The angle that he was fucking you in was even better and more intense than before. His grunting and murmured praises filled the room along with the wet, vulgar noises of his cock impaling your cunt. You felt another orgasm coming on, but it was more. Your pants turned to whiny yelps and moans and you felt like something was about to burst.

“Joel… Joel!”

“I know… can feel it… come for me, sugar… come on…”

“Joel… it’s – unhg!... I’m…”

You felt the bubble burst and cried out, collapsing on the couch. Joel let out a grunt-turned-moan at the flood of liquid pouring out of you, holding your hips, and continuing to fuck into you. His thrusts got sloppy and as you leaned on the back of the couch for support, he punched into you one last time, holding your hips against him tightly as he unloaded himself into your pussy with a loud groan.

When you tried to move, his hand moved to your back, soothing over it, as he panted. “Stay put, sugar… just… just stay put.”

You relaxed and laid forward, putting your weight on the couch, and closed your eyes. You could feel his cock twitching in you as it began to soften. His weight shifted and he pressed a kiss between your shoulder blades. The uncharacteristically gentle action made your eyes open abruptly and you sucked in a breath.

Joel’s chuckle reverberated against your back through his chest. “Congrats on your promotion, sugar.”

--------<3----------

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[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Personally, I don't think Harry has gone for the spouse visa/green card route yet. Simply because his entitlement, and Meghan's entitlement, about his royal status would not allow them to show Harry as being dependent on Meghan in any way

They would both, much rather prefer to lord it over people, family, governments (both UK and US) that he is royal, the kings son (late queens grandson) and hence very very imp in his own right.

Also, the paperwork and forethought required to submit a greencard application means that both harry and meghan would need to do a lot of work - fill out applications, gather documents, aquire and submit bank data, proof of dates, proof of financials, taxation etc - all of which they are both incapable of doing. Not to mention that their narcissistic discordered tendencies would make them think this is below them.

(I know we can't actually diagnose them, but this is Tumblr, not CNN, and as a psychologist I know that filling out paperwork is the absolutebane of an NPD persons existence. These little quirks of the NPD are not talked about much but they are nearly universally observed.)

Another issue would be hiring an immigration lawyer for the spouse visa. The expenses and the process of actively listening to what the lawyers says is required procedure would put HnM on the backfoot and hate the process.

I have assumed that Harry is either on -

1). A1 Visa - diplomatic/head of state/official representative of a country

Or

2). O1 Visa - specialized skilled worker/Einstein visa given to artists, actors, models, investors in specialized fields, highly skilled academicians, persons contracted by a sponcer for a special skill etc

Now, there is some evidence to support both these. So I'll list those reasons and my conclusions from those below.

Option 1.- A1 visa

Harry moved to US in March 2020, just before pandemic. Most people focus on this, but forget that when the couple moved they both were still, officially, Full Time working royals for the BRF and embarking on the 1 year trial period to see how things pan out for them. This trial period lasted till March 2021, upon the conclusion of which the BRF promptly officially announced there demotions. So, they were working royals when they moved to US, albeit on a leave of absence.

So, what does that mean? That his (and her) diplomatic status was still intact. They did their last royal engagement for the UK in mar 2020, but they hadn't retired. Hadn't resigned. His royal patronages, commonwealth role etc were only taken back in 2021. Both parties had agreed to a separation period till then.

Another factor is that they had already asked Canada to provide him (them) with full time security, ie., treat him like a full fledged royal. But Canada said only till March 2020, and not after that. Trudeau actually released a statement about this.

So this tells me that they (may have). actually asked for full time royal treatment ie., security and diplomatic status for the trial period lasting upto March 2021 and were told no.

(I think that's what Harry means when he says the BRF took away his security, I thiy he means that the BRF pricipals personally prevailed upon Trudeau and made him refuse security)

So Harry's only option was to take his fancy diplomatic status passport, hope on a private jet and fly to LA without telling anyone.

People think this was because the lockdowns were imminent. But I think it was also timed in a way that they were out of Canada before the promised security period expired.

After this, during pandemic, Harry consistently did nonsensical "commonwealth" related zoom calls. Till the president/head/chairperson of the CW youth org (I forgot who exactly but one of main people of the org) publicly distanced themselves in late 2020.

Another thing that was odd was that Trump official said he will not be giving the couple security. Which means that his govt was asked, maybe repeatedly asked and Harry made his case, till the time Trump had to release a statement saying he won't. Makes me think, Harry made his case using his A1 status. Because otherwise, if he was there as a private citizen, this request was absurd and the govt would dismissed this without a second thought. But if they had permitted someone to enter based on their A1 status as representative of a head of state, they had weigh the pros and cons of this request and it could have caused a potential diplomatic incidence. So the president himself had to be face of this decision.

(this is irrespective of anyones thoughts about who the president was, or what kind of person the president may or may not have been. This was an executive decision)

So,

All this leads me to speculate that Harry initially, and until end of 2021 at least, made use of his status as a representative of the head of status, which he already officially had, and was on paper, to enter the US.

The duration of permit of this initial stay could have been 2 or 3 years. So, 2022. Or 2023, when curiosly, Heritage Foundation suddenly took interest in the status of his visa.

Option 2 - O-Visa

This is a bit funny and farfetched, but I think Harry could also have entered on his British passport, which allows a stay upto 6 months (tourist visa). And then applied for O- Visa status a couple of months later.

By June 2020 Harry had forged some sort of investment+partnership with Betterup. This likely involved an initial investment into the company. For enterpreneurs and/investors into a US based company, a minimum investment of 250k or 500k is required to be shown. If he did this, then Betterup could have easily sponcered his application and he could used his very imp, very skilled, very unique position as CHIMPO as a means to get a visa.

A lawyer and the company could have helped him. Plus his high profile status due to his work as a philanthropists, patron of various international organisations etc would definitely be an asset as it is proof and documentation of his years of work.

We may laugh and debate about the "quality" of his work all his life but when it comes to govt paperwork, this is still documented proof. And it's verifiable. So, noone is going to get into the nitty gritty of it, and getting a stamp is easy for him.

Another avenue could have been that he was immediately listed as a high in demand, much sought after international speaker or much renown. He did a couple of onscure, forgettable speaker gigs. But that's all he would need for proof.

He was also listed as the executive producer for oprahs documentary, he was earning his producer certification and the Apple documentary was under production.based on that, he could have applied for an O-visa and it would have been approved.

The duration of stay for O-visa status is 3 years at a time, after which you have to apply again for the visa. It is not eligible for renewal. All paperwork and applications have to be submitted again and will be scrutinized as new.

Let's assume he applied 2/3 months after initial entry, so that's June. His application would have been approved by July end Aug latest. (this is based on my personal experience with the same visa, in this the same time period).

With COVID restrictions, he gets approved but doesn't have to immediately go back to his home country to get it stamped at immigration. I got mine stamped end of 2021 from my country. Till then I stayed in US and worked. So he could have stamped his in April 2021 when he went back for his grandfather's funeral.

If he got his O-visa in 2020, then it would expire in 2023. This is the time heritage foundation started creating a fuss about his visa.

Now, with all of that, an important question we need to ask is- why did the heritage foundation start their crusade in 2023?

This could be because Harry's first visa stay (likely) expired in 2023 and he reapplied for a visa. And was (most likely) approved for the same type of visa again. This process would have gone quite smoothly with Harry's pull. But this second time it is quite clear that he got special treatment. And the heritage foundation wants to expose this special treatment.

Orr more likely, someone in the know tipped them off, and wants this exposed for whatever reason. I DO NOT think the BRf want this exposed, I don't think they care.

I do think someone in the US govt or maybe even a journalist wants to make a big deal out of this. And rightly so.

Anyway, that's my dissertation on Harry's visa. I don't think it matters to anyone outside of Tumblr, but I do feel his entitlement is mind-boggling and he should be held accountable for the person that he is. And if this visa issue is what does it, then so be it.

It is based on my personal experience with these 2 types of visas. And my theoretical and observed knowledge about how entitlement is one of the driving forces for most classical NODs. But the reality for him may be different. And you Rumour, being a fed, would probably know more and know better.

*********

I agree with you. I’ve been reading up about the visa issues (and also spoke to a few other fed friends).

I think Harry is here on an O-1 visa, for extraordinary/outstanding talent. Meghan doesn’t seem invested enough into the marriage to be willing to do the paperwork so if he’s here on a spousal visa, a lawyer would’ve done the paperwork. Additionally, I can see the financial requirements being a major concern for the BRF; the BRF goes to a great length to protect their financial information from other countries and the general public. They’re not going to let the US (no matter how special the relationship) take a peek at their books. So I suspect they squashed the idea of a spousal visa unless it was done *exclusively* on Meghan’s own savings/net worth. Which she balked at doing because it implies she’s financially responsible for Harry and that’s not what she signed up. She signed up to spend Charles’s money. Not her own. So that’s off the table.

Next is the diplomatic visa. Harry doesn’t actually have a diplomatic passport. He has a regular passport. He may have had a second passport for work that he traveled on UK business for, but he never had diplomatic status in the BRF; only The Queen and Charles did.

And that’s something government officials are really strict about, that people travel on official business use official papers. Officials traveling on personal business use personal papers. Or, that’s how it works here in the US. Not sure about the UK.

Now for Harry to have come to the US on a diplomatic passport for a diplomatic visa, he would have had to present his credentials for being here, and those credentials would have explained clearly and succinctly what he was in the US for and what official business he had with us. They would’ve looked into it.

So I don’t think he’s here on a A/diplomatic visa. Or perhaps not anymore, when it was made clear following the one-year Megxit review that he no longer represents the UK or works on behalf of The Queen/BRF.

Which leaves the O visa, for talent. But I don’t think it’s Better Up. I think it’s Invictus Games. Not only would it explain why they still stick with Harry despite all the expenses and criticism they cost the Foundation. And that’s what Harry is known for, outside of the BRF - his military support and support for veterans. It would also explain why Harry continues to try so hard to collaborate with the US military and warfighter community. Because he needs the military to support his visa.

Maybe it’s transferred to Better Up now since he seems to do more work for them.

As to why the government is trying so hard to keep his visa papers buried? I think they know we know Harry isn’t qualified to be here on a diplomatic or an O visa, so the BRF greased the wheels a bit in some way, shape, or form to help him get through the system.

But also if he’s here on a O-1 visa connected to Invictus Games, it could imply government or DOD support; if not DOD directly, then close partners or contractors…aka military lobbyists.

So that’s where I am right now.

And fingers crossed this gets posted in full. 🤞

#submission

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

Another independent terrorist attack against Israeli civilians was carried out today, this time a vehicular one (where the terrorist tries to ram their vehicle into civilians on the street. This type of terrorist attack was first introduced in Israel, and then imported abroad. The deadliest one so far, was the vehicular terrorist attack in France, where at least 84 people were murdered). That's a small reminder that what happens in Israel, does NOT stay in Israel, and that terrorist attacks against Israelis should very much worry non-Israelis, too. What Hamas did on Oct 7 to our civilians, in their own homes, should terrify everyone, and not just for the sake of the victims. Today's 28 years old Palestinian terrorist, from Hebron, was unsuccessful in hurting anyone, and was eliminated himself.

The IDF has found, among other weapon caches, a truck full of long range rocckets, intended to be fired at Israeli civilians. Yesterday, I read a report that said the amount of weapons found in Gaza is so big, the army couldn't confiscate it all, and deliver it back to Israel, so instead, a lot of these weapons are being destroyed in Gaza itself, for example by running thousands of assault rifles over with tanks.

It's been reported that the president of MIT was under a lot of pressure from faculty and members of her administratoin to cancel a screening of the IDF's compilation of footage from the Hamas massacre on Oct 7. She insisted on not canceling it, and even attended the screening herself. People who were there, said she looked horrified, and had to look away from the screen at certain points. Will that make a chance in how antisemitism is treated on the MIT campus? I think it's important to listen to Jewish students on whether they see a real change on this. If they don't, she still needs to resign or be fired, just like the president of Harvard, and many other university presidents, who have been allowing antisemitism to thrive on their campuses for years.

Ritchie Torres might be my favorite American politician at the moment. I salute his moral clarity, his willingness to look at the conflict in depth instead of through a simplified prism that de-humanizes Jews, and his courage in speaking up for what's right, for Jewish people, and against antisemitism, even when he might pay a heavy price for that. He's been doing so consistently for years. This post he shared is absolutely horrifying, the 53% who think it should be okay to call for the genocide of Jews is SO telling. I'm grateful to Ritchie for calling this attitude out. If you can, please support him!

In my daily update post yesterday, I mentioned Jews needing police escort, because of anti-Israel protesters. Here is a Jewish activist speaking about Ayelet Levy, the mother of 19 years old Naama Levy (held hostage by Hamas), who came to NYC to talk about her daughter (you probably saw Naama, she was featured in one of the three most circulated vids of young Israeli women being kidnapped to Gaza on Oct 7), and the meeting was targeted by these anti-Israel protesters. It's pretty clear what has happened to Naama when she was kidnapped, and since. The people who attacked this meeting, who kept Ayelet from speaking for her victimized daughter, are literally working against the victim, and enabling her rapists and abusers. I don't think I have words for how morally distorted this is, all of it...

These are 47 years old Elad Katzir and 79 years old Gadi Mozes.

I mentioned in my daily update post yesterday, that Hamas released a vid with 3 captive men, to play with the minds and feelings of Israelis, and put even more pressure on our government, to give in. A short while after that, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) released a similar movie, with the two men pctured above. This shows once again how coordinated the Palestinian terrorist organizations in Gaza really are.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

#israel #antisemitism #israeli #israel news #israel under attack #israel under fire #israelunderattack #terrorism #anti terrorism #hamas #antisemitic #antisemites #jews #jew #judaism #jumblr #frumblr #jewish

[beardedmrbean]

A college professor of “peace” accused of teaching support for Hamas has been suspended from his tenured post at an ultra-liberal school after allegations he once ran a sex-for-grades scheme came to light.

Iranian citizen Mohammad Jafer Mahallati — who has called for the elimination of Israel and backed the murderous fatwa against Salman Rushdie — was discreetly put on indefinite administrative leave by Oberlin College, Ohio, and scrubbed from its website last month after the administration learned he had previously been accused of sexual harassment.

The college is currently being investigated by the federal Department of Education after a complaint that it abused the civil rights of Jewish students by allegedly letting Mahallati speak in favor of Hamas and give credit for writing anti-Israel screeds.

The move by Oberlin to suspend Mahallati, 71, comes amid mounting fury at colleges’ failure to grapple with antisemitism in the wake of the October 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis by terrorist group Hamas.

The presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania faced demands to resign from a billionaire donor Wednesday and criticism from the White House after telling Congress it “depends on the context” as to whether students could demand the genocide of Jews.

Mahallati’s suspension came after court papers surfaced from the 1990s which revealed that when he was an adjunct professor at Columbia University, he had been accused of giving a graduate student 11 years his junior good grades in return for sex.

The papers, given to The Post by Middle East Forum, showed that Columbia and Mahallati had both been sued by the woman, whom The Post is not naming, accusing him of working to damage her reputation and academic future after she reported his alleged sexual abuse to school authorities.

Mahallati had denied the claims in 1997 but did not respond to a request for comment from The Post. Columbia denied the allegations at the time.

The woman, then 32 and a Palestinian Christian, met Mahallati, a 43-year-old married father of a young son, when she began to minor in Middle East Studies in September1995, she alleged in court papers.

She alleged that under the pretense of interviewing her as a potential research assistant, Mahallati invited the student to his home, “made repeated sexual advances” and promised good grades in exchange for sexual encounters, which allegedly took place at his office as well as his Manhattan apartment for 15 months.

Mahallati allegedly told the woman that he would withhold her grade if she did not keep silent. She alleged that when she went to Columbia’s administration in April 1997 he accused her of handing the same paper in twice, which would have been fraudulent.

When she sued, court records show that he tried to claim diplomatic immunity with a Dec. 1, 1997, letter from Iran’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations appointing him “‘Special Advisor in Political Affairs’ with full diplomatic and political privileges.”

He had been Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations between 1987 and 1989 and Columbia submitted a letter from the State Department to prove he was not immune from being sued for what he was accused of doing after 1989. The case was settled in 1998.

Andrea Simakis, a spokeswoman for Oberlin, told The Post he was placed on leave on Nov. 28 and declined to comment further. It is unclear exactly when the college learned of the 1990s claims against Mahallati.

“We take all allegations of sexual harassment and abuse extremely seriously,” said Simakis. “We would not hire a faculty member who we knew to have a history of sexual harassment of a student, colleague or staff member.”

At Oberlin, Mahallati became the subject of a federal probe this fall when the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights revealed that it was investigating a complaint that he taught students “support for Hamas and terrorism” as part of a larger probe into anti-Semitism on Oberlin’s campus.

The probe, which was opened on September 29, was prompted by a complaint filed in 2019 by Oberlin College graduate Melissa Landa. Landa, who graduated from Oberlin in 1986, is president of the Oberlin Chapter of Alums for Campus Fairness, a non-profit that works to end antisemitism.

She sent the department a dossier of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel incidents between 2014 and 2017, including that Mahallati told his classes in 2016 that “Israel is a colonialist state” and “an apartheid state.”

Oberlin said in November that it “abhors antisemitism” and said of Mahallati: “Professor Mahallati has stated that he believes in the right of all people to exist in peace and endorses a two-state solution that would allow the people of Israel and Palestine to peacefully coexist.”

Separately, a group of Iranian anti-regime activists, some of whom have had family members targeted by the Islamic Republic, had also complained about Mahallait, accusing him of being part of a cover-up of a mass murder of 5,000 political prisoners in 1988 when he was Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations.

It said in a statement: “This action comes as a result of tireless advocacy and stark revelations about Mahallati’s involvement in covering up human rights abuses and his antisemitic rhetoric.”

In addition to Columbia and Oberlin, Mahallati has also taught at Georgetown and Princeton.

#nunyas news

[eretzyisrael]

by Troy O. Fritzhand

Ishay Ribo, center, performing on stage. Photo: אביחי ג’רפי via Wikimedia Commons

Protests are scheduled at Harvard University in opposition to one of Israel’s most popular singers, who is set to perform on Tuesday. The concert of Ishay Ribo is being organized by Chabad of Harvard with the goal of raising money for Israel.

“Jewish hate and anti-Israel voices are targeting Harvard Chabad and Israeli artist, Ishay Ribo,” the campus group posted on Instagram. Continuing, they said, “Ishay is a man who embodies profound love and peace. His music inspires the soul and elevates consciousness. Jewish consciousness, and human consciousness.”

The post came after a self described “radical bookstore” in Boston, Lucy Parsons Center, posted on its Instagram, calling on anti-Israel protestors to “Join us for a PICKET AND PROTEST” of the show. They noted that the staff of the Sinclair Music Hall, where the concert is scheduled to take place, boycotted the event and the venue was forced to hire outside staff.

Chabad of Harvard added: “This evening was created to lift the spirits of Israeli and Jewish students suffering from Jew-hate on college campuses. Love, peace, and music will prevail.”

The protest comes as Harvard has gained a reputation since the war’s outbreak on Oct. 7 — when Hamas terrorists killed more than 1,200 Israelis and took hostage over 250 — for a lack of support of the school’s Jewish students. This included a Congressional hearing where then-university President Claudine Gay refused to condemn calls for the genocide of Jews, saying that they may or may not violate of Harvard’s code of conduct, “depending on the context.” Due to plagiarism accusations and backlash over the incident, she resigned in January.

#ishay ribo #harvard #harvard university #jewish students #lucy parsons center

[centrally-unplanned]

Some follow-up Harvard/Claudine Gay Discourse Thought

- So there is a common refrain being heard along the lines of "how could Harvard's leadership be this bad? Don't they know how to crisis manage?" And it parallels a wider critique of campus leadership, "why don't they fight their students or staff on their ideas? Why do they seem to kowtow so much? How has the leadership of such an elite institution decayed so badly?"

This is of course a lot of rhetoric (orgs fuck up sometimes), but there is a core illusion at the heart of this - when has the leadership of a university ever been accomplished? Name another president of Harvard University beyond Claudine Gay. It was probably either no one, or Larry Summers, who you know for also being fired from that job. Universities have never had stellar leadership because that is not how they operate; on the education front they are *receptacles* of status and prestige, they don't generate it themselves (and on the research front that work is done by individual faculty & the centers/teams they build). Expecting brilliant leadership from university presidents is like expecting brilliant leadership from junior members of the House of Representatives, that isn't their job.

- What their job is relates to a second point; Bill Ackman, the leader of the push to get Claudine Gay fired, posted a manifesto recently on Twitter, where he makes an off-hand comment about why don't schools hire more presidents from businesses or other outside orgs? Academics seem to be a poor fit for the job of executive leadership, its not their skillset. Well for one, this is a trend in higher ed - more schools have been willing to hire outside presidents for over a decade now. But its still uncommon and, to be honest, primarily happening at lower-ranked schools. That is because their job is to be not a leader, but a stakeholder negotiator. Universities have that split job of being 'prestige holders', certifying the meritocracy; but their staff is not primarily concerned with that job at all! It happens somewhat automatically. And faculty are not employees, to be ordered around by leadership; they are essentially co-owners of the university, who expect it to cater to their desires. Obviously it gets really complex at the granular level but at the fundamentals university presidents are academics because their job is to focus on academics first; by being an academic they can be trusted to have their priorities straight.

You can see how that focus is quite at odds with the idea that would be societal leaders making friends with Congressmen!

- And a final, minor point - right now I definitely see a lot of "hypocrisy of the left" chants going on, around the idea that Harvard wouldn't punish Gay for her plagiarism. But...she resigned? She was forced out, she was punished. The fact that that process took time, and had dissenting voices, and messy back-and-forths, is called "reality" and is how it works every single time. Its a very common internet-trend; because people are able to get a ton of info very quickly, and idiots post twitter manifestos drawing lines in the sand, that discourse gets confused with the actuality of how orgs move and function. Harvard turned out to care about ~left ideology~ a good deal less than its critics believed (though they still care of course).

[dragoneyes618]

In a pivotal Congressional hearing last week that examined rampant anti-Semitism in some of the nation’s Ivy League universities, the presidents of Harvard, MIT and University of Pennsylvania shocked the world when they refused to affirm that calls for genocide of Jews in their respective institutions violate their schools’ code of conduct.

It was a profound moment of reckoning not only for the leaders of these elite institutions but for a society that looks to them as beacons of leadership. The hearing tore aside the veil masking spiraling anti-Semitic bigotry within these universities and the complicity of its leaders in allowing it to fester.

At the House Committee on Education hearing, Republicans showed footage of fierce anti-Israel protests at their schools, many of which included virulent hate speech toward Jews and calls for genocide.

Yet the Ivy League presidents being questioned appeared to inhabit their own bubble, disconnected from the alarming footage. They seemed to expect their defense of obscene Jew-hatred as protected “free speech” would win approval, if not in the halls of Congress then with grass-roots Americans.

Instead, “support for the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and M.I.T. eroded quickly,” wrote the New York Times, “after they seemed to evade what seemed like a rather simple question: Would they discipline students calling for the genocide of Jews?”

Their responses “drew incredulous responses,” the Times article said, as a chorus of influential voices condemned the presidents’ failure to unequivocally denounce calls for the murder of Jews and to outlaw such conduct.

‘One Down, Two to Go’

As calls mounted for the resignation of the school presidents, including from alumni, members of Congress and billionaire donors who announced they were withdrawing their gifts, president Liz Magill of UPenn walked back her congressional testimony saying she hadn’t been “properly focusing.” The next day she announced that she was stepping down.

“One down, two to go,” commented Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY, who has led demands for accountability on the part of the three university administrators for their lack of “moral clarity and leadership.”

“This is only the very beginning of addressing the pervasive rot of antisemitism that has destroyed the most ‘prestigious’ higher education institutions in America,” said Stefanik. “This forced resignation of the president of UPenn is the bare minimum of what is required. These universities can anticipate a comprehensive Congressional investigation of all facets of their institutions’ perpetration of antisemitism. This includes administrative, faculty, funding, and overall leadership and governance.”

“Harvard and MIT, do the right thing. The world is watching,” she added.

Following the hearing, Rep. Stefanik announced that the House Education and Workforce Committee is “launching an official congressional investigation with the full force of subpoena power” into the three universities, among others.”

In addition, Stefanik led 73 members of Congress, from both the Republican and Democratic parties, in drafting a scathing letter to the boards of the three universities under investigation.

“I am proud to lead a bipartisan letter with Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-FL, and 72 of our colleagues to the members of the Governing Boards of Harvard, MIT, and Penn demanding that their presidents be removed after this week’s Education and Workforce Committee hearing,” Stefanik wrote.

“Testimony provided by presidents of your institutions showed a complete absence of moral clarity, and illuminated the double standards and dehumanization of the Jewish communities that your university presidents enabled,” the letter to the governing boards said.

“The leadership of top universities plays a pivotal role in shaping the moral compass of our future leaders,” the letter went on. “It is critically important that such leadership reflects a clear commitment to combating antisemitism, along with all forms of hate speech and bigotry.”

“Given this moment of crisis,” the letter said, “we demand that your boards immediately remove each of these presidents from their positions and that you provide an actionable plan to ensure that Jewish and Israeli students, teachers and faculty are safe on your campuses.”

Talk But No Action  

The hearing, “Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism,” began as both Republican and Democratic members of the House grilled the three female presidents, demanding to know how each has addressed the spike in antisemitism since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

“Today, each of you will have a chance to answer, to atone for the many specific instances of vitriolic, hate-filled antisemitism on your respective campuses that have denied students the safe learning environment,” Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), chairwoman for the House Education Committee, told them in her opening statement.

Far from acknowledging that anti-Semitism had surged out of control under their watch, each president staunchly defended her record, proudly pointing to various measures she had taken to increase campus security and open investigations into anti-Semitic episodes.

Noticeably absent from these self-congratulatory remarks was any mention of actual penalties or disciplinary procedures meted out to students or faculty proven to have engaged in egregious anti-Semitic harassment. When questioned about what disciplinary measures are being employed, the presidents refused to answer.

Representative Elise Stefanik, R.-NY, zoned in on this glaring disconnect by repeatedly asking the presidents if calling for the genocide of Jews violated the code of conduct at their schools, and would they discipline a student engaged in this conduct?

Moral Imperatives Vanish When It’s About Anti-Semitism

All three danced around the question, throwing out legalistic catchphrases to avoid a direct answer. When finally cornered, the presidents insisted that everything depends on “context.” In other words, calls for violence against Jews are not inherently wrong or against school policy.

The following segment of the dialogue captures this shocking stance that sparked an intense backlash.

Rep Stefanik: President Magill, at Penn, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s rules or code of conduct? Yes or no?”

UPenn President Liz Magill: If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment, yes.

Rep. Stefanik: I am asking whether specifically calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment?”

Magill: If the speech becomes conduct, it can be harassment, yes.”

Stefanik: “Conduct” meaning committing the act of genocide?

Magill: It is a context-dependent question, congresswoman.”

Stefanik responded with shock.

“That’s your testimony today? Calling for the genocide of Jews is dependent on the context? It’s not bullying or harassment? This is the easiest question to answer yes for,” Stefanik said. She then threw the question at Harvard president Claudine Gay.

Stefanik:  And Dr. Gay, at Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment? Yes or no?”

Gay: “It can be, depending on the context.”

Stefanik: Genocide that is targeted at Jewish students, Jewish individuals? I will ask you one more time. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment? Yes or no?”

Gay: “Again, it depends on the context.”

“It does not depend on the context,” Stefanik shot back. “The answer is yes, and this is why you should resign. These are unacceptable answers across the board.”

Intense Backlash Against College Presidents

Stefanik, the fourth-ranking House Republican, was not the only one outraged by the moral obtuseness on display in the presidents’ responses. Their refusal to condemn calls for the murder of Jews drew fire from alumni, university donors, elected officials and influential commentators from across the political spectrum.

On a deeper level, the presidents’ response threw light on a corrosive atmosphere prevalent in leading universities today where time-honored moral and ethical principles have been eviscerated by woke and left-wing ideology.

Those immersed in this sea of indoctrination appear out of sync with the rest of the world. This might explain the bizarre disconnect in the exchanges between the Ivy League presidents and the members of congress at the hearing.

“It’s unbelievable that this needs to be said: Calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we represent as a country,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said. “Any statements that advocate for the systematic murder of Jews are dangerous and revolting — and we should all stand firmly against them, on the side of human dignity and the most basic values that unite us as Americans.”

“After this week’s pathetic and morally bankrupt testimony by university presidents when answering my questions, the Education and Workforce Committee is launching an official congressional investigation with the full force of subpoena power into Penn, MIT, Harvard, and others,” Rep. Elise Stefanik said in a statement.

“We will use our full congressional authority to hold these schools accountable for their failure on the global stage.”

Republican presidential candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley posted the video of the interactions at the hearing online, saying such remarks by the college presidents “will end or we’ll pull their tax-exempt status.”

“Calling for genocide of Jews is no different than calling for genocide of any other ethnic, racial, or religious group. The equivocation from these college presidents is disgusting,” Haley said.

Private equity billionaire Marc Rowan wrote a message to UPenn trustees saying he heard from hundreds of alumni, parents and leaders who were shocked by the hearing. “The University is suffering tremendous reputational damage,” Rowan wrote in the message, obtained by CNN. “How much damage to our reputation are we willing to accept?”

‘The Three Behaved Like Hostile Witnesses’

Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman called for the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania to “resign in disgrace,” citing disgust with their testimony.

“Throughout the hearing, the three behaved like hostile witnesses,” Ackman wrote in an online post, “exhibiting a profound disdain for the Congress with their smiles and smirks, and their outright refusal to answer basic questions with a yes or no answer.”

Ackman, a Harvard graduate who has been a vocal critic of how universities have addressed antisemitism, posted a clip from the exchange at the hearing where the university leaders were asked about calls for the genocide of Jews.

“They must all resign in disgrace. If a CEO of one of our companies gave a similar answer, he or she would be toast within the hour,” Ackman said. “The answers they gave reflect the profound moral bankruptcy of Presidents Gay, Magill and Kornbluth.”

“Why has anti-Semitism exploded on campus and around the world? Because of leaders like Presidents Gay, Magill and Kornbluth who believe genocide depends on the context,” Ackman said.

The criticism of the university leaders was so strong that president Gay of Harvard and Magill of UPenn felt compelled to issue new statements attempting to “clarify” the testimony. These revamped assertions contradicted their earlier statements that threats of anti-Semitic violence did not automatically qualify as harassment.

In a brazen about face, Magill now termed calls for genocide “vile,” and vowed to hold perpetrators to account.

Gay made similar contrite retractions, saying she was “sad” that her words “had caused pain,” and affecting distress that critics were confusing her support for “the right to free expression with the idea that Harvard would condone calls for violence against Jewish students.”

Bomb Threats; Hillel and Chabad Houses Vandalized

Despite the illusions the Ivy League presidents tried to project of their administrations managing the anti-Semitic outbreaks on their campus, many Jewish students say they feel threatened daily, not just by fellow students but by faculty and staff as well, the Free Beacon reported.

“As a student, despite what my university says, I do not feel safe,” said University of Pennsylvania senior Eyal Yakoby. “Let me be clear: I do not feel safe.”

Yakoby described several incidents on campus since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks. They included “a bomb threat against Hillel; a swastika spray-painted on the Hillel building; the Chabad house vandalized; a professor posting an armed wing of Hamas’s logo on Facebook, a Jewish student accosted with hostility; and ‘Jews are Nazis’ etched adjacent to Penn’s Jewish fraternity house.”

He also referenced a Dec. 3 protest that saw participants vandalize school property with graffiti calling for an “intifada,” and chant in Arabic, “From water to water, Palestine will be Arab.”

Harvard Law School student Jonathan Frieden described the fear gripping many Jewish students. “I talk to my Jewish friends on campus every day,” he said. “They tell me how afraid they are to go to class. They share hate messages they are receiving from other students on social media, including comparing Jews to Nazis. And they ask each other for safety advice because of the lack of effective communication from the university.”

Frieden described an incident where pro-Palestinian protesters swarmed a law school building he was inside while they chanted slogans including “from the river to the sea” and “globalize the intifada.” He witnessed Jewish students take off their yarmulkes and one student hide underneath a desk, he said.

All four students also castigated their administrations, alleging that they failed to do anything meaningful to tackle the anti-Semitic climate on campus.

New Trend: Jewish High School Grads Abandon Ivy League Plans

An article in National Review, a conservative magazine, discusses a new trend among Jewish high school graduates in the wake of the anti-Semitism crisis on college campuses: a growing disenchantment with the Ivy League image.

Fueled by the specter of pervasive anti-Semitism and hostility in these schools, bright Jewish students are rethinking their Ivy League aspirations and turning to smaller, less prestigious colleges.

To take a few examples from one Ivy League school, since October 7, “Columbia has become a byword in American Jewish circles for rampant antisemitism,” the article noted. “In the past two months, an Israeli student was assaulted on campus, and people have screamed profanities at religious Jewish students.”

In another example, reports in an online paper noted that an Israeli student at Columbia, introducing himself on the first day of class, was targeted with an anti-Israel slur by a professor who asked him, “So you must know a lot about settler colonialism. How do you feel about that?”

Another academic reportedly observed to a Jewish student, “It’s such a shame that your people survived just in order to perpetuate genocide.”

Columbia’s apathy in the face of corrosive anti-Semitism has driven donors away, prompting the administration to do serious damage control to prove their concern for Jewish students’ safety, the National Review article noted. In early November, the school suspended Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a rabid pro-Palestinian group, for “threatening rhetoric and intimidation.”

Columbia graduate Anna Feldman told NR that even before October 7, she always felt she was walking around on “eggshells whenever the topic was Jewish people or Israel. I always felt like I couldn’t say what I had to say about Israel or the Middle East in general.”

She noted that the much publicized episodes of anti-Semitism at Columbia after Oct. 7 were nothing new to her. They were part of the university’s everyday landscape, driven by left-wing philosophies that target Israel—and Jews by association—as a source of evil.

Feldman said she refrained from writing essays touching on the Middle East out of fear of being branded a pro-Israel bigot or “pro-colonialism.” Conversations she’s had with Jewish students stuck in classes with professors justifying the Hamas massacres, are deeply unnerving.

“Thank G-d I’m no longer on campus,” Feldman reflected to the interviewer. “I don’t think I’d be able to sit in the same room with someone who wants me dead.”

*

American Colleges Unmasked

Columbia, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania are all under investigation by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights over complaints that their administrations have not adequately responded to rising antisemitism.

“The furor over antisemitism on campus is a rare and welcome example of accountability at American universities. But it won’t amount to much if the only result is the resignation of a couple of university presidents,” asserted a WSJ op-ed.

“The great benefit of last week’s performance by three elite-school presidents before Congress is that it tore the mask off the intellectual and political corruption of much of the American academy,” the article said.

“The world was appalled by the equivocation of the academic leaders when asked if advocating genocide against Jews violated their codes of conduct. But the episode merely revealed the value system that has become endemic at too many prestigious schools.”

*****

‘Deafening Silence’ Evokes Silent Complicity in Nazi Era

Last week’s explosive congressional hearing occurred just after an equally electrifying press conference, where House Republicans hosted Jewish students from many of the universities that have seen an alarming rise in antisemitism, The Hill reported.

“In 2023 at NYU, I hear calls to ‘gas the Jews,’ and I am told that ‘Hitler was right,’” Bella Ingber, a junior at NYU, told those in attendance.

“Since Oct. 7,” Ingber said, “the anti-Semitism I’ve experienced on campus is reminiscent of the Jew-hatred I’ve heard about from my grandparents, Holocaust survivors who experienced first-hand the deafening silence of their neighbors in Poland and Germany when the Nazis first rose to power.”

“70 percent of MIT Jewish students polled, feel forced to hide their identities and perspectives,” MIT graduate student Talia Kahn told the lawmakers. “This is not just harassment. This is our lives on the line,” added Kahn, who is also president of the MIT Israel Alliance.

She said she felt “immersed in an extremely toxic anti-Semitic atmosphere,” at MIT. “I was forced to leave my study group for my doctoral exams halfway through the semester because my group members told me that the people at the Nova music festival deserved to die because they were partying on stolen land.”

In an interview with Free Beacon, Talia Kahn shared that the school’s interfaith chaplain publicly threatened Jewish students; that DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) staff claimed Israel has no right to exist; and that faculty told students that if they are scared, they should “just go back to Israel.”

#antisemitism #jews #jumblr #antisemitism on campus #harvard #mit #columbia #university of pennsylvania

[officialyourdailyinspiration]

With Jewish students at Columbia University being advised to remain home for their safety, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik led a letter calling on the university’s president, Minouche Shafik, to resign for failing to dismantle an anti-Israel encampment on campus and stop antisemitic harassment. 

In a Monday letter to Shafik, Stefanik and other congressional members blamed the situation at Columbia on the university president’s policies and “misguided decisions.” The New York Republican representative and her colleagues stated that, based on recent events...

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Gabrielle Canon at The Guardian:

For about a week, the cluster of tents raised by students at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, stood in solidarity with Palestinian civilians in Gaza and with students protesting at other campuses across the US. Then, on Tuesday, the tents quietly vanished from the grassy quad at the heart of campus. There were no riot-gear-clad crackdowns from police and no assaults from masked groups to spur disbandment. Instead, Brown chose a different path: it negotiated. While semesters at other schools speed toward a violent close – complete with canceled classes and commencement celebrations, scenes of brutal yet unsuccessful attempts at quelling the protests, and aggression from opposing groups that has heightened already inflamed tensions – Brown is one of several universities that have sought a more amicable solution.

Northwestern University in Illinois, the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, Rutgers University at New Brunswick in New Jersey and the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis have also brokered agreements with students, while others, including Wesleyan in Connecticut and the University of California at Berkeley, have allowed the protest encampments to continue. . The outcomes from these divergent approaches remain uncertain; while some of the more extreme examples of suppression have been met with public shock and condemnation, protests have persisted. At Brown, students who agreed to dismantle their demonstration in exchange for a seat at the table in an upcoming meeting with the Corporation of Brown University did so knowing that a satisfying answer to protesters’ demands for divestment is far from a guarantee.

But the movement, which erupted in response to a conflict thousands of miles away, has brought one closer to home into sharper focus. The protests in support of Gaza are testing the bounds of students’ rights to free speech and shining a spotlight on the deepening political divides over the culture on college campuses. “Students are pointing out contradictions between being asked to be free thinkers and then finding themselves challenged when they think they are thinking freely,” said Dr Manual Pastor, a professor and the director of the Equity Research Institute at the University of Southern California, whose research focuses on the power of social movements.

Schools have long grappled with this balancing act, both encouraging diverse perspectives and limiting its expression in the name of safety. But these simmering tensions have come to a boil as political divides widen.

Since the start of the protests on campus last fall, conservatives have argued they’re a symbol of how an “out-of-control left” has come to dominate US campuses. It’s an issue the GOP-led House has pursued with vigor, launching an investigation into federal funding for schools where protests have lingered, and scrutinizing presidents of some of America’s most prestigious universities whom they allege have allowed an escalation in antisemitism. That intense scrutiny, and the response of prominent university donors, has incentivized some schools to take a heavier hand, Pastor said. In December, the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard were forced to resign after a heated hearing on their actions to limit pro-Palestinian protests. The president of Columbia University, Minouche Shafik, who was called to testify in April, vowed to take a strong approach. The next day, she unleashed swarms of New York police department (NYPD) officers on student protesters. Meanwhile, tensions on campuses have only intensified. That’s why some universities have tried to use this moment as an opportunity, choosing to foster dialogues around the emotionally fraught issue rather than trying to remove it with force.

[...] As the semester draws to a close, it’s also not a sure thing the encampment will be allowed to continue. Security at the school is keeping a close watch, Mogulof said, and is ready to step in if they deem campus life is being disrupted. Other schools that first prioritized dialogue have shifted course. Dartmouth, an Ivy League university in New Hampshire, scheduled several events and discussions in recent months discussing the situation in the Middle East. But on Wednesday, soon after the first tents of a protest encampment were raised, officers from the Hanover police department cleared the site, arresting 90 people including history professor Annelise Orleck, a former chair of the school’s Jewish studies department who has taught at the school for 34 years. And, some protesters have succeeded in getting their calls answered. The Evergreen State College agreed on Tuesday to set up a task force that will map out its “divestment from companies that profit from gross human rights violations and/or the occupation of Palestinian territories”. Meanwhile, the cause aligning these protesters across the country has largely been lost in the rhetoric over whether their tactics are wrong or right. While crackdowns against student protesters feed the news cycle, updates about the carnage that continues in Gaza has been pushed to the background.

The Guardian takes a look at the campuses that are allowing Gaza Solidarity Encampments and negotiations with dialogue-- rather than heavy-handed enforcement and arrests-- as the way to tackle the role of funding Israel Apartheid, such as Brown University.

#Ceasefire NOW Protests #Colleges #Gaza Solidary Encampments #Gaza Genocide #Israel/Hamas War #Campus Protests #Israel/Hamas War Protests

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Winkfield Twyman Jr.

Published: Dec 27, 2023

I have a tender spot in my heart for race pioneers. My spirits were lifted when L. Douglas Wilder was sworn in as the first Black American governor of a U.S. state—the state of Virginia, of which I am a native son. My mom was dying of cancer at the time, but she wanted me to witness Black History in the making. So on that cold January day in 1990, I left her bedside and bore witness to the coming of a better time in Virginia.

Similarly, on the night of November 4, 2008, when Barack Obama was elected the first Black President of the United States of America, I joined family and friends to run into the darkness of the San Diego night, yelling and screaming, whooping and hollering. It was a sacred moment in our American history to be always cherished and never forgotten. That the American electorate would elect a Black person to the highest office in the land was something our grandparents and our grandparents' grandparents could only dream of.

I considered the project of race in America to be finished that November night in San Diego. The election of a Black U.S. president broke the psychological barrier in our minds. There is no higher office than President of the United States of America—in the entire world. For me, the questions of race were all answered. I was done with race.

But too many Americans can't seem to quit race. Fifteen years after President Barack Obama's triumph, some feel it noteworthy to remark that Claudine Gay is the first Black President of Harvard University. Worse, in the face of numerous mounting scandals, many are defending Gay by claiming that the attacks against her are racial in nature.

They are not. They are all well deserved.

The demand that Gay resign stems from the utter lack of moral competency she displayed in her testimony before Congress, in which she said that calling for the genocide of Jews is only against Harvard rules in certain contexts. She also failed to condemn the Hamas atrocities against Israel in real time on October 7, another reason she should resign. There is also now evidence of serial plagiarism. And did I mention Gay has published no books—an unprecedented feat for a Harvard President, unless one travels back in time to the year 1773?

And yet, many are coming to her defense. Having finally got their wish of a Black president of Harvard, Harvard seems unwilling to let her go. The racial wagons have circled around Gay, with President of the NAACP alleging that White Supremacy is afoot and Morehouse President David Thomas claiming in a Forbes interview that Gay is a scholar at the "top of her profession... as qualified as any President Harvard has ever had."

This is not only misguided, but deeply ironic. Did you know that Claudine Gay during her Harvard career has repeatedly targeted and disrupted the careers of prominent Black male professors?

As Dean of the College, Gay terminated Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr. as Faculty Dean of the Winthrop House. Professor Sullivan, Jr., a graduate of Morehouse College and Harvard Law School, was the first Black faculty dean of a house in the history of Harvard College.

What was Professor Sullivan's offense? Sullivan deigned to represent the disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein—an act of moral conscience, since all are entitled to legal representation in our legal system. Yet legal conscience mattered not to Claudine Gay, who terminated a race pioneer for doing his civic duty.

You may excuse this heartless termination as a one-off. You would be wrong. Economics Professor Roland G. Fryer, Jr. was next in the sights of Dean Gay. Fryer was a top Black professor at Harvard. After having overcome all sorts of hardship and childhood deprivation, Professor Fryer joined the faculty at Harvard to become the second-youngest professor ever to be awarded tenure at Harvard, and went on to blaze a trail of distinction, including winning the MacArthur Fellowship and the John Bates Clark Medal.

Yet when Fryer undertook research into the killings of unarmed Black men in Houston, Fryer's research found no racial disparities. He made the mistake of undercutting the racial narrative that the Left has adopted, and as a result, Gay did her best to remove all of his academic privileges, coordinating a witch hunt against him. Fryer survived Gay's crusade of discharge but Fryer's lab was shut down, his reputation tarnished.

No one in good faith should defend President Gay because she is the first Black president of Harvard. Even if you don't agree with me that our racial struggle is in our past, someone who has targeted Black male professors has waived any benefit of the "first Black" defense.

W. F. Twyman, Jr., Class of 1986 Harvard Law School, is a former law professor. He is also co-author of Letters in Black and White: A New Correspondence on Race in America published by Pitchstone Publishing.

==

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Claudine Gay is as corrupt as they come.

#Winkfield Twyman Jr. #Claudine Gay #Harvard University #Harvard #Claudine Gay is corrupt #Roland Fryer #academic corruption #diversity hire #diversity equity and inclusion #diversity #equity #inclusion #plagiarism #corruption #religion is a mental illness

[progressive-waves-art]

Political Machinations, Source (Ayreon) Edition

Have some headcanons.

Whatever country on Alpha the story takes place in is a presidential democracy. You never really get into specifics, but there’s two “abnormal” points to consider: legislation moves considerably faster than, say, the US system, and immigrants are allowed to run for president so long as they are naturalized citizens having lived in the country for ten years.

About two years pre-‘Frame takeover, the dominant political party was a group of standard pro-industrialization idiots, whose actions had just come back to bite them in the ass what with the pollution and withdrawal of aid from international powers over petty fights and such. The president (not Russell) eventually resigned halfway through his term in total defeat, kickstarting a new election. This is done two years after another abrupt resignation by Simone Simons (Counselor), his personal therapist, who saw how volatile things had become in the political sphere and didn’t want to be involved anymore.

The next most powerful party in government for the last five years had been a group called the Conservationists, environmentalists led by The Opposition Leader, who we’ll just call Tommy, an argumentative political minister with a history of ecoterrorism early in his career. This is where most of the album characters naturally place their loyalties, on account of them being mostly scientists who like the focus on rejection of unnecessary technology and healing of the planet and such. Said characters form a sort of “inner circle,” existing outside of politics but still using influence to push the party’s agenda, sometimes using underhanded tactics:

The Biologist (Floor) is the technical founder of the party, organizing support and pushing Tommy into politics a little over ten years pre-TDTTWD. She continues influencing policy, public image and recruitment.

The Captain (Tobias) is an engineer with billions in inheritance money and influence over the space program he’s happy to drain into the cause, so long as they entertain his ideas of leaving Alpha entirely. They have an odd, careful agreement that they’ll let him go nuts with his exodus spaceship antics, but only if things are REALLY hopeless. He has personal motivation as well, having known Tommy for over almost twenty years.

He’s also unintentionally helpful to public opinion of the party, as he’s native to the country, while the other “bosses” (Tommy and Floor), are both immigrated.

The Historian (James) conducts funded research in environmental history at the capital city university lots of characters are affiliated with. He’s publicly affiliated with the party, leaving him on thin ice with said uni (on account of them desperately accepting funding from shady sources that support “over-evolution” and rejection of natural preservation as a necessity. This leads to to massive bias in research and teaching within the institution, sometimes going as far as outright censorship). But he’s crafted a very odd strategy to support the Conservationists and still keep his position, that is publishing work with wildly opposing viewpoints so the school can’t accuse him of leaning one way or the other. So like, he’ll write a scathing commentary on increasing lack of breathable air in lower city levels and its causes, and before he can be targeted for it he’ll whip out a journal article about how it’s actually totally fine if all the fish are dying because it’s good for the economy. He feigns neutrality through pure confusion while the actual party uses select research of his to promote their cause.

The Astronomer (Hansi) is in a similar predicament. He’s a high level professor with ties to Floor, who abandoned a teaching career herself to join in on Tommy’s politics and tried to take Hansi with her. He refused initially, too attached to his job security to take a risk like that. He did eventually join in, but only after the party came to more substantial power (and when the state of the planet got substantially worse). His situation is a peculiar one, though. He’s still intent on keeping his job, but uses it for the party’s benefit. In short he preaches their ideology in his completely unrelated astronomy classes, in hopes of educating and swaying younger people (often coming from very wealthy backgrounds) to their efforts. Amazingly, he’s been able to do this for years without being suspected on a large scale. Floor is the only one that even knows about his involvement.

The Prophet and The Preacher (Nils and Zaher) are exactly that. Religious figures that run a local, newly popular religion related to the Universal Migrator.

The Migrator’s existence is a relatively new discovery, made at this capital university, and the nature of it caused people to question already established religions on Alpha. It’s an actual answer to the deepest questions in the known universe, and it destabilized faith in other higher powers while spawning a religion of its own, with Zaher being one of its earliest public figures. A few years later, Nils gained his prescience spontaneously, and attributed it to The Migrator which he learned about through his research in theoretical astronomy. In reality Nils’ visions and the Migrator have almost no relation (it’s actually Time Telepathy but that’s a whole other can of worms), but it’s not like HE knows that. He leaves the university, declares his faith and starts working with Zaher to spread it.

The religion’s popularity skyrockets once Nils gets involved. His visions are, apparently, founded in reality. All at once, the Migrator’s existence and power is proven while also appearing to have more spiritual qualities than its hardcore scientific discovery likes to admit.

More importantly, those visions validate practically everything the Conservationists promote (the end of the world via technology, etc), and at Tommy’s request Nils and Zaher affiliate themselves with him. The party now appeals to a new and LARGE demographic, even if it alienates members of other religions. At this point the Migrator one has become the dominant faith in the country anyways.

Everything is great. We’re influencing politics in a real way. We’re making progress.

Except we’re not doing it fast enough.

So says Russell, some GUY who shows up out of nowhere trying to run for president when Tommy would otherwise have campaigned completely unopposed. His whole shtick, of course, is using the Frame to solve all the world's problems and he presents it in a very hopeful and upbeat tone. He’s recruited the singular competent person from the previous presidential administration, The Diplomat (Mike), who had lots of public favor given that he was the one keeping the shitshow in one piece for years on end. Mike vouches for him and this is very helpful but it’s supplementary to Russell's specific talents.

Against the Conservationists-their endless funding, big name supporters and heaps of evidence and political experience-Russell has something none of them do, even the previous president before him: the ability to pacify the public. Tommy and Floor, two people with insane and unchecked environmental anxiety, are very prone to using scare tactics in their politics. Promises of Alpha's destruction if they don’t heed their warnings combined with Tommy's aggressive rhetoric and tone of voice. The previous president loved deflection and false promises, standard government official behavior. But Russell is a calming, charismatic and genuinely positive person that seems almost docile next to the others, and in that he’s the 'comfortable' option. He makes people feel safe and is offering a fast, even possible solution to their suffering. People LOVE him.

This whips everyone into a panic. The Conservationists supposedly know that the Frame will turn on humanity and out of their fear, that gradually becomes the main focus of their campaign. So much power is turned against Russell that they seem even more aggressive to people than they did before, no matter what they stand for and they start losing credibility. Eventually, obviously, Russell obtains the presidency, a month before TDTTWBD.

As a show of good faith, the losers are invited to Russell's inauguration. Floor, the more reasonable of her group, is hopeful that if they play along for a while then they can corner Russell and talk him out of his Frame plan. All that goes down the drain when Russell lets a snarky comment slip during his speech and Tommy, hopeless and erratic, starts beating his lights out in public. Him and several higher ups on his side are arrested for attempted assassination, setting off a domino effect of trials and investigations (including Hansi and James) over the next few weeks as the party is legally dissolved.

From there, into the main plot, viewpoints of characters begin to unravel. Russell's whole Frame plan existed because he KNEW there was no other option, and soon enough Floor starts understanding that. All of a sudden as the literal apocalypse rages outside, Tobias’ plan has become the most reasonable, the Nils’ visions shift accordingly. Tommy is released from death row on Russell’s orders, and a hinge point of the two’s conflict is wondering if he did that out of actual compassion or because he knew Tommy would have done far more damage as a martyr. Everyone gets to grapple with how little the work they poured their lives into mattered now that Alpha is gone.

Et cetera, et cetera. Sorry I didn’t talk about Chemist, maybe he’ll have his own post. Man is his own mess that doesn’t even become plot relevant until Star of Sirrah.

#ayreon #the source #fifteen year old me was on some shit with the political intrigue fanfics I #I left so much out here #everyone is this album is seems so stressed out so I gave them reasons to be 🤠 #I have a mountain of TToE hcs maybe I’ll do a post about that too #idk but I can’t draw anything right now it’s annoying #progressive waves art #prog Metal #power metal #arjen lucassen #tommy karevik #floor Jansen #Simone simons #james labrie #hansi kürsch #nils k rue #Zaher zorgati #Tobias Sammet #Michael eriksen #Russell Allen #Rock Opera #concept album

[kuiperoid]

Optical Illusion: Perceptions of Race and Sexuality with Right-Wing Internet Personality Nick Fuentes, Part 3

[originally posted here]

Part 1, Part 2

The Gospel of Judas

There have been multiple references throughout this article to Fuentes’s former associate Jaden McNeil, but to understand the true depth of that situation, one must know who Jaden McNeil is and what he meant to both Fuentes and the America First movement. Simply referring to him as “Fuentes’s ex-associate” is greatly underplaying the role he played in Fuentes’s movement and life in general. The two were a veritable right-wing version of Maximilien Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins and, as with that political friendship, it was not made to last. It ended, however, not at the guillotine, but in an ongoing online battle of insults and accusations.

Jaden Patrick McNeil was born to a modest background in a small town in Nebraska on May 17, 1999. He would go on to be a student at Kansas State University with the intention of one day becoming a lawyer. He proved quite effective as a conservative activist as the president of Kansas State’s Turning Point USA chapter, which would become one of the largest in the country. McNeil’s success with Turning Point led to invites to conservative conferences, including to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

For all of his success with Turning Point, McNeil found himself becoming disillusioned with the movement. In initial interviews, McNeil would say that it was because the stated views of Turning Point did not align with his own, such as being accepting of nonwhite immigrants so long as they arrived via legal routes. Later, he would state that he was disturbed by the number of older men at these events who appeared to be there to sexually prey on the college and high school-aged boys they knew would be present. At an event in 2019, Canadian white nationalist activist Faith Goldy introduced him to Nick Fuentes. The two began talking and McNeil felt he finally found someone he could see eye-to-eye with and be open with politically and, he would later say, a movement that he hoped would be less infested with predators than Turning Point. The connection was mutual as Fuentes would describe the meeting as “divine intervention,” saying that God intended for them to meet. McNeil’s fellow Turning Point associates were not as enthusiastic about their president’s new friendship and warned him that Fuentes was a “Neo-Nazi.” McNeil did not heed their warnings and stayed in contact with Fuentes. The two participated in some events together, such as when Fuentes publicly accosted Ben Shapiro, eventually culminating in McNeil founding America First Students, an extension of Fuentes’s organization aimed at college students, after McNeil resigned as president to Kansas State’s Turning Point chapter. 

McNeil’s continued association with Fuentes and statements online perceived as racially charged drew ire from some of the less conservative Kansas State student body. For example, he complained about Kansas State’s Ethnic Studies GE requirement and said that the Jennifer Lopez and Shakira halftime show at the Super Bowl displayed everything that he hated about immigration. This came to a head in June of 2020 when McNeil made a tweet “congratulating” George Floyd on being “drug free an entire month,” followed by a reference to the widely debunked claim popularized by conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, of whom McNeil is a fan, that George Floyd’s death was the result of a drug overdose rather than being asphyxiation by the cop kneeling on his neck. This caused immediate public backlash, including calls for McNeil’s expulsion and a boycott by the Kansas State football team. McNeil was unapologetic and remained enrolled at Kansas State even as the outrage reached outside of the student body.

It is unclear what the final straw was, but McNeil was eventually expelled from Kansas State. Fuentes offered to let McNeil live in the basement of a building he had recently bought in Chicago free of charge while he acted as treasurer to America First. There were even discussions of him possibly moving forward to produce the show and act as a co-host in the future. In addition to his new position as America First’s treasurer, he became a gaming streamer to make ends meet.  McNeil would continue to participate in events with Fuentes for the next few years, even serving as a featured speaker at a few of them, such as anti-vaccine rallies, the next few AFPACs, the events  that preceded the January 6th storming of the capital, and even serving as Fuentes’s travel partner and videographer during the White Boy Summer Tour of 2021.

The image of the bond between Fuentes and McNeil was shattered in April of 2022 when McNeil made a post on Telegram announcing that he was resigning as treasurer to America First. He said that his political views had not changed but that it was not what he wanted in life at that moment, wishing everyone well. However, this would continue to unravel in the coming weeks as Fuentes’s associates began bitterly speaking about McNeil. His streaming channel was removed from Cozy without warning. Shortly afterward, McNeil appeared on Kino Casino, an Internet show that had often been critical of Nick Fuentes, along with fellow America First defector Simon Dickerman to discuss what led to their eventual departure. McNeil’s friendship with Fuentes was revealed to be far more fraught than previously presented. Issues arose between the two of them soon after McNeil moved to Chicago. Fuentes was painted as a controlling, paranoid narcissist who wanted more from McNeil as a friend than he was offering. He claimed that Fuentes became jealous of his relationships with girls and would feel hurt when McNeil would invite him to play video games with him as part of a group chat rather than reaching out to him individually. Many allegations arose, such as that Fuentes was using a multiplier to increase the number of views on his shows and building on the claims that he was a federal informant, but the most often-cited moment to Fuentes’s critics across the aisle seemed to be the allegation that he had posted in a group chat about searching McNeil’s apartment with a blacklight for traces of his semen on the bed and couch. This startling image portrayed of Fuentes was not invalidated by the May 10th, 2022 episode of his show in which he addressed McNeil’s appearance on Kino Casino, something he felt was explicitly done to hurt him. While he insisted that the story about him searching for semen was based on a joke he made about how unavoidable the stains on the furniture were when he went in to clean out the basement apartment out for the next tenant, he did not deny and in fact built upon the image of the demanding, co-dependent friendship he had attempted to forge with McNeil. The two hour stream included a monologue in which Fuentes he described all he did for McNeil - doxxing Kansas State students who had threatened him, moving him out to Chicago to get him away from a girlfriend he could not bring himself to break up with, cleaning his room when he was depressed, buying him soup and tea when he was sick with COVID, and more - while feeling he had received an insufficient reciprocity, something he had brought up with McNeil near the end of their friendship. It appears that he had expected more, alleging that McNeil frequently got in phone arguments with his mom with regards to his friendship with Fuentes. He portrayed the dissolution of their friendship as starting in December the year before due to how much time McNeil was spending with his new girlfriend. Fuentes appeared to be holding back tears multiple times during the stream as he described how devastated he was over the perceived betrayal and the love he still felt for his former best friend, holding out hope that they could someday make amends. It would have been easy to feel sorry for Fuentes; losing a friend is difficult for anyone, moreso when trapped in the right-wing emotional prison in which men cannot express emotions, certainly not love and heartbreak over platonic friends. That is, it would have been if not for what happened next.

As the weeks went by, the love and sadness were replaced with bitterness. Fuentes went on a trenchant spiel about how McNeil lacked intellectual depth when it came to media consumption compared to himself and wrote him off as “[his] former bitch.” It was clear the intentions to make amends with McNeil were gone as the accusations against him became increasingly bizarre and personal such as saying that he was a sugar baby to a high paying super chatter, was secretly transgender or intersex, and had attempted to nonconsensually kiss Fuentes while drunk. In keeping with Fuentes’s alleged grandiose self-perception, he took to thereafter referring to McNeil as “Judas” or sometimes “Judy” to allude at the gender ambiguity he was now accusing him of. In yet another unexpected turn, followers of Fuentes began publicly posting various unflattering photos of McNeil, purportedly meant to paint McNeil as an irresponsible alcoholic libertine. While he was drinking or smoking in a handful, in most, he was simply sleeping and did not necessarily appear to be passed out from alcohol consumption. Most of the photos appeared to be taken by Fuentes himself, namely one being a literal selfie he took with McNeil sleeping on a couch behind him. McNeil stated that he had no clue any of them existed and that they appeared to have been taken over the course of the three years that he and Fuentes knew each other. McNeil confessed that, while he knew saying so was “kind of gay,” that seeing these pictures made him deeply uncomfortable and made his “skin crawl.” In keeping with the response to Fuentes’s monologue about his loss of McNeil’s friendship, naturally McNeil was not going to permit himself to be seen as a man showing vulnerable feelings or other times when he likened Fuentes’s need for emotional validation as being “like a girl,” but even he could not help himself here and his viewers expressed sympathy, remarking that he had every right to “feel violated.” He questioned why Fuentes had taken them to begin with and what purpose they had served him in the years that he kept them before leaking them to the public, speculating that his intentions had been sexual in nature. Whatever the reason, one can generally consider nonconsensually photographing someone in their sleep and then posting those pictures publicly to be inappropriate, regardless of the nature of their relationship. With all the debates about whether or not Fuentes’s actions were “gay,” the subject of whether or not these actions would be appropriate in any situation has been overlooked.

McNeil had previously stated an intention to move on with his life and “get a blue collar job,” should his work with America First come to an end. However, Fuentes vowed to keep him from ever having a normal life or getting a normal job. This led McNeil to carry on as a streamer, primarily focused on conservative critiques of America First and Fuentes, such as his ideological inconsistencies, the federal informant rumors, and protecting alleged sexual predators connected to the movement, namely Ali Alexander whose antics McNeil says Fuentes was aware of. There are of course less refined critiques as well, such as vulgar references to Fuentes’s speculated sexual orientation, his supposed excessive pornography usage, and comments about Fuentes’s conception as the child of in-vitro fertilization, something McNeil views as unnatural and the cause for all of Fuentes’s bizarre personality traits. Fuentes would continue to directly or subtly reference McNeil in the months to come, making references of his own to McNeil’s lack of adequate masculinity and being the child of divorce. Both examples highlight a rightwing fixation on having been brought into the world from a proper beginning in an almost Calvinist view of predetermination. 

The two would not directly interact again until July of 2023 when McNeil called in to a discussion with LeafyIsHere to both defend his honor and bring to light the situation with Ali Alexander. Before the discussion even began, groypers poisoned the well for LeafyIsHere by leading him to the dox of the netizen whom they claimed was McNeil’s sugar daddy. During the call, Fuentes joined in, repeatedly questioning McNeil about his super chatter, taunting him about sexual acts the two presumably engaged in, and went on to repeat the claim that McNeil had attempted to kiss him once, this time adding a story about how it happened after the two of them saw Spiderman: No Way Home together in theaters. McNeil essentially broke down in frustration and left the call. Both on his show and on Kino Casino later, he claimed that LeafyIsHere had repeatedly muted him and denied having attempted to kiss Fuentes ever, let alone in the story he told. Perception by their respective supporters colors how these incidents were perceived. Unsurprisingly, groypers took Fuentes’s word at face value and McNeil fans did not. How they discuss these alleged interactions is obviously painted by these opinions and end up portraying them in entirely different lights. Over time, the respective supporters of these men have developed rather specific images of their alleged attraction to the other for being something denied on both sides. Once again, images of race and sexuality are at the center. McNeil fans present Fuentes as this evil, conniving gay Mexican attempting to sexually manipulate their pure, white heterosexual hero. Even left-wing Fuentes critics have fallen victim to this mindset that infantalizes McNeil, with more than one having referred to him as “the teenage boy [Fuentes] tried to groom,” as if he was not less than a year younger than Fuentes and a legal adult for the entirety of their knowing each other. Groypers emphasize McNeil’s lack of traditional masculinity in appearance, calling him a “twink,” and suggest he was attempting to seduce their dear leader, sometimes leaning into the sugar baby angle. A more confusing claim they cling to to is Fuentes’s allegation that one of McNeil’s grade school friends came out as came as gay as an adult, meaning that McNeil is likely gay by association; why someone who claimed he was his best friend as an adult and has been unnerved by gay rumors about himself would use this argument is unclear. Some take a third approach. Inevitably, the fact that Fuentes portrays one of McNeil’s fans as offering him an exorbitant amount of financial support as driven by sexual desire has caused some detractors to assume he is speaking from his own experience as his former employer and the provider of his home. The canard developed here is that McNeil was attempting to lead Fuentes on or even acquiesced to his supposed desires for financial gain before moving on to an older, more financially and emotionally stable sugar daddy. This still portrays Fuentes as a sniveling, pathetic  imp of a man driven by unnatural lust, while McNeil is portrayed as a monetarily predatory manipulator who cannot rely on his own means to take care of himself.

It is curious that both Fuentes and McNeil would bring up traits that they were clearly aware of from near the beginning of them knowing each other in their critiques of each other. In both instances, there is an attempt to rewrite their history. Fuentes has referenced being disappointed to learn that McNeil was not a celibate virgin like himself after he moved in, but he still remained friends with him after that, even continuing to provide him with a job and free housing. For all of McNeil’s jokes about Fuentes being Mexican, there is minimal chance he did not consider someone with the last name of “Fuentes” might be partially Latino, even if he somehow missed the streams where Fuentes actively referenced having a Mexican grandfather. His own jokes about Fuentes’s possible homosexuality are not only in reference to incidents that occurred while they lived in the same building or spent time together, but events that have become part of the general Nick Fuentes lore. Certainly, some of the cited events, such as Fuentes’s monologue about sex with women being “gay” happened after he and McNeil had parted ways, but McNeil’s references to the infamous “CatboyKami date” as if it was a shocking new revelation are rather confusing. The event in question happened at the end of 2019, the year McNeil and Fuentes got to know each other; in fact, the viewers of the entire stream can confirm that Fuentes made multiple references to his “friend Jaden” throughout the night, presumably referring to McNeil. It is difficult to imagine that McNeil did not hear about the stream, given he was getting involved with America First at the time and both right and left-wing detractors replied to nearly everything online related to Fuentes or his organization with taunting images and references to the stream, especially during the first few months of 2020. All of that and McNeil apparently did not consider it suspicious at the time, considering he moved into the building that Fuentes owned and became a more involved member of America First all after that happened.

One recalls him mentioning in the past that Turning Point members warned him about Fuentes and cannot help but consider that speculation about his sexuality was a part of that. Speculation about McNeil’s own sexuality was rampant during his association with America First, despite all of his confirmed relationships at the point of writing this being with women. Most of it was based on very little, some just remarking on his appearance and calling him a “twink.” One can find an older rumor spread around attaching a Freudian explanation to McNeil’s racial animus, saying he was sexually assaulted - ranging from a pantsing to a more violent tale - by a pair of black male students in the restroom while in high school, further adding to this image of him as on the receiving end of predatory sexual attention from men of color. Considering McNeil has stated that the town he grew up in was fairly homogenous and that he did not develop his ideologies until college, all versions of this tale seem deeply unlikely, but that did not stop it from gaining traction in the gutters of KiwiFarms and such. The exact birth of this rumor is unclear, but it did not appear to take hold until after McNeil was associated with Fuentes, further emphasizing how it was likely based more on the perception of him during that time than actual fact. Many rightwing detractors of Fuentes who have since become supporters of McNeil admit to having previously assumed he was his boyfriend. It is not difficult to find older posts on KiwiFarms and similar websites with lurid posts joking about what sort of sexual acts the two were speculated to have engaged in together. Even the hosts of Kino Casino had initially reported on the split between Fuentes and McNeil as a “break up” and made crude sexual remarks about the two of them prior to McNeil’s appearance on their show. Perhaps McNeil’s reaction now is a mix of regret that he did not listen to detractors sooner and a need to overcompensate for the rumors that spread about him as a result of his association with Fuentes. On that topic, Fuentes has himself appeared to attempt to change history as well. He has since tried to claim that he lost interest in McNeil as a friend after incidents of him trying to pressure him to drink and ultimately culminating in the alleged incident of him trying to kiss him after seeing a movie, despite them being not only publicly associated for four months after the fact, but Fuentes’s infamous sorrowful monologue was after all of that and complaints about the time McNeil spent with his girlfriend. One would think that he would respond to someone expressing unwanted romantic advances towards him proceeding to get a significant other would be met with relief and, if the alleged attempted kiss was so off-putting that it put an irreparable dent in their friendship, he would not mind the friendship formally ending, let alone be nearly brought to tears lamenting that end. 

It is difficult not to feel a semblance of sympathy for McNeil. Regardless of the reasons behind some of Fuentes’s antics, whether it was attraction, an attempt at control, or undiagnosed  neurodivergence-related social awkwardness, one thing that is for certain is that the way he treated him was professionally inappropriate at best and abusive at worst. When looking at McNeil’s older posts or listening to his stream to this day, between the provocative references to race and gender, there are some genuine frustrations about not having the opportunity to grow up in the same world generations before did, not unlike those of other young people of quite different political leanings. This is compounded when one remembers his working class upbringing, preventing him from accessing what positives remain. It is true that many of the most obvious scholarships and other assistive programs are focused on aspects of identity like race and gender, one can see how a young white man that still has all of the struggles of someone lacking resources would interpret this. As despicable as many viewed America First, it is easy to see how a desperate nineteen-year-old was drawn in. One cannot help but speculate, had events occurred a bit differently, that he would have instead been pulled into the Center for Political Innovation, a group that espouses left-wing, class-based politics with a strong criticism of identity politics, though declaring them capitalist constructions to divide the working class rather than a Jewish conspiracy to take down the white man. Of course, rather than addressing the antics of Nick Fuentes, he would instead have to reconcile with accusations of that group’s leader, Caleb Maupin, who would face questionable allegations of his own and a mass exodus from his movement in the middle of 2022. Finding an extreme political movement without members accused of inappropriate actions towards their underlings is becoming increasingly difficult. 

Class remains at the center of the struggle between these two. McNeil joined the movement so young and is now being kept from moving on with life by someone whose upbringing was far more comfortable than his own. McNeil criticizes Fuentes for his “unnatural” IVF conception, something that requires a great deal of money to undergo. Fuentes criticizes McNeil for having divorced parents when working class families are far more likely to experience divorce than wealthier ones. It is also undeniable that the dynamic between the two, even if it lacked the context of attraction that some allege was there, was deeply unbalanced and controlling. The two were attempting to navigate a friendship while Fuentes was also McNeil’s employer and provided his housing. Hearing McNeil’s voice crack as Fuentes went after him in that phone call, it is clear that imbalance remains. McNeil has jokingly talked about how odd it is that Fuentes continues to go after him, calling himself a “nobody.” For all of the criticisms McNeil has launched against his former boss and friend, one wonders if, at the end of the day, Fuentes convinced him that he was nothing without him and he still believes it. From an optical perspective, it certainly appears that way.

Conclusion

How to precisely define Nick Fuentes’s race and sexuality is a mystery to anyone aside from himself and even that may be up for debate. More important than whatever may actually be true is what is seen as true to his critics, something that varies by person and situation. In the end, Fuentes was correct in identifying optics as the most important factor of a movement. What is really there does not matter. All that matters is what people perceive. 

Sources

The initial pieces of research on Fuentes and his associates was discovered in articles by the SPLC, ADL, Mother Jones, and the Kansas Star. Much of the rest of the personal information was found from much less official sources, namely an Illinois-based Facebook group dedicated to outing the personal lives of the Chicco-Fuentes family to keep them from profiting financially on account of the son’s political involvement. Most of the information was from watching episodes of Fuentes and McNeil’s shows, both live and uploads on Bitchute, Odyssee, Rumble, YouTube, and the Internet Archive, as well as following their social media accounts on Twitter, Telegram, and Gab. The episode of Kino Casino that McNeil and Dickerman appeared on was helpful in assessing their views. Additionally, their interviews with others, as well as reaction videos by leftist streamers critical of them - including Shark3ozero, Vaush, and Creationist Cat - were also utilized. As for the commentary on the response by fans and critics, much was obtained from KiwiFarms and other websites dedicated to mocking Internet personalities. The anecdote about Martin Luther was based on the teachings of a deeply-influential, now-retired high school AP European History teacher. Everything else is based on the author’s own observations and opinions.

Bonus: The playlist I made to accompany this essay.

#Nick Fuentes #Jaden McNeil #KiwiFarms #Kansas State #Turning Point USA #classism #gay panic #George Floyd #French Revolution #Caleb Maupin #Naden playlist

[just-a-music-and-poetry-lover]

I'm scared. So fucking terrified that I can't express it right.

I'm from Portugal. Our government was dissolved by the president recently because our Prime Minister of the last 8 years resigned after his name was brought up in a criminal affair regarding very high patent government members. You might have heard of it if you follow international news. If you do, you probably know more about it than me, but this is the issue in a nutshell.

In the last elections, the Prime Minister's party had the "absolute majority" in Parliament (I don't know the name in English, that's how it's called in Portuguese), which basically means that more than half of the government's members belonged to that particular party, meaning they could pass whatever laws they wanted if they all voted the same. This meant that, for the first time in forever, real change could have happened for the better here if they had done that, since they call themselves a "center-left" party.

The problem is that some major problems happened during this government's time in power, as well as some others that had little to change happening to them. People are frustrated. Everyone is. Everyone was already tired of that party being in power during the last elections, but because there was the threat of the rising far-right parties, people got scared and mainly voted for the same party, afraid that we'd have another far-right government, not even 50 years after we freed ourselves from a fascist dictatorship. So he and his party got the absolute majority in parliament. And things got worse.

Yes, it is time for another party to be in power, but the far-right is NOT the answer, and that's what many people, and alarmingly, many young, about-to-vote-for-the-first-time impressionable people, are failing to understand.

The far-right claims to be a people's party, they claim they defend the people's interests, but THEY DON'T. They're racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, queerphobic in general, they're pro-marginalizing already marginalized communities. Did I already mention they plan to end universal healthcare, public education and social services? Well, they do.

The problem is that many people who are advocating for that party right now, when the new elections are a month from tomorrow, will absolutely lose rights if they get to power.

But they don't listen. They just think that, because a leftist party messed up (and they did mess up pretty badly, don't get me wrong. I'm in the left but I can recognize that), that the far-right is the solution to everyone's problems, when they will only make them worse.

I think of myself, a transgender man, who will absolutely lose my rights to transition as I wish if the far-right gets to power.

I think of my little sister, who is about to celebrate one month dating her girlfriend and who will not be able to get married to her if she wishes to do so if the far-right gets to power.

I think of my grandmother, who was recently very sick and would not have survived if Portugal didn't have universal healthcare, who have died otherwise because the family would not have been able to pay for her treatments in the privatized healthcare the far-right idealizes.

I think of all the immigrant friends I've made over the years and how they would all be deported to their countries of origin if the far-right got to power.

I think of every child, myself included, who would not have gotten even the most basic of education if there weren't public schools in my country.

I think of the scholarship I got to study at university because my family is low-income, which I would definitely not have received if the far-right was in power.

If you're from Portugal and are old enough to vote, please do so with conscience. Lives will depend on your vote on March 10th. Lives will be sacrificed for an illusion of freedom that will immediately disappear or lives will be spared. Please, vote, but don't vote for a party that would take away the rights of more than half of the population. Even if it seems like those measures wouldn't affect you, they definitely would. We're all in the same boat. Some of us won't even get on the boat if my concerns turn out to be true. The majority of us will drown.

#vent post #portugal #Portugal's political situation

[beardedmrbean]

Elise Stefanik’s viral line of questioning of an elite trio of university presidents last week over how to respond to calls for the genocide of Jews didn’t just spark bipartisan outrage and lead to a high-profile resignation. It settled a personal score the congresswoman had with her alma mater, which had all but disowned her in the wake of Jan. 6.

Back then, in 2021, the dean of Harvard University’s school of government said the New York congresswoman’s comments about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election had “no basis in evidence,” and the Harvard Institute of Politics removed Stefanik from its senior advisory committee. Stefanik at the time criticized what she described as “the ivory tower’s march toward a monoculture of like-minded, intolerant liberal views.”

Now, Stefanik’s high-profile turn assailing the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania is a real threat to those institutions. Penn president Liz Magill resigned in the wake of her testimony on Saturday, and Stefanik has made it clear she expects more: “One down. Two to go,” she posted to X, formerly known as Twitter.

More than achieving vindication, Stefanik opened a new front in the culture wars — all while scrambling the Democratic Party’s traditional coalition of well-educated voters and their institutions of higher education.

Mitch Daniels, the retired former president of Purdue University and a former Republican governor of Indiana, called it “higher ed’s Bud Light moment” — referring to the beermaker’s divisive ad campaign featuring a transgender influencer — “when people who hang out with only people who adhere to what has become prevailing and dominant ideologies on campuses and suddenly discover there’s a world of people out there who disagrees.”

Republicans, of course, have been the loudest voices defending Stefanik. Daniels, who has also testified before hostile lawmakers on behalf of his university, mocked that the administrators Stefanik questioned retained the white-shoe law firm WilmerHale to prepare.

“Were they unprepared?” Daniels said in an interview. “Yes, they were unprepared by a lifetime of being cloistered in an ideological bubble and groupthink.”

Speaking at an event Monday, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a graduate of Harvard Business School, told Bloomberg the contentious exchange on Capitol Hill marked a “cultural moment.” He added: “There is a tipping point, and we have to be clear on where that tipping point is. And extermination speech is clearly on the wrong side of that tipping point.”

But it is the movement against the university presidents from a chorus of Democrats that suggests a possible realignment of a traditional political alliance, one that could see bipartisan pushback against the elitism of the ivory tower.

“The president believes strongly that this is a moment to put your foot down and to ensure we have moral clarity,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said during a gaggle on Monday, as President Joe Biden headed to Pennsylvania for an unrelated event.

Josh Shapiro, the high-profile Jewish Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, called for Magill’s ouster.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss, a Massachusetts Democrat and an alum of both Harvard and MIT, said it’s “too soon to tell” whether the bipartisan backlash would become an issue in next year’s election. He attributed the larger cultural conflict to a “tension between individualism and identitarianism.”

“It’s fundamentally about hypocrisy,” said Auchincloss, whose great-grandparents fled the pogroms, emigrating to the U.S. around World War I. “And, at least for me, what I reacted to viscerally from the testimony was particularly Harvard, which has an abysmal track record on championing and incubating free and open speech — now, [they’re] into the First Amendment, when it’s about antisemitism? That was more striking to me.”

On the presidential campaign trail, the issue was finding new life.

“Finally, the veil has been lifted on the ugly underbelly of what’s going on in our culture, including in our universities and our educational institutions,” Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur who authored “Woke, Inc.,” the 2021 book that railed against social justice, told POLITICO.

Prior to last week’s hearing, many candidates, including Ramaswamy, had largely relegated talk of wokeness to the back burner after finding it did not resonate with primary voters.

But that has changed for now, and Ramaswamy welcomed the new discourse. He called on universities to rewrite their speech codes to include antisemitism and said university presidents should be fired not just for their testimony, but for failing to “actually embrace free speech and open expression, embrace the true purpose of seeking knowledge as opposed to indoctrination.”

At least for now, Stefanik’s criticism has wrenched open whole lines of attack in the campaign.

“I’m gratified that I think people have opened their minds on both sides to the arguments that I was making back then,” Ramaswamy said.

#nunyas news #they were asked if antisemitism had a home on their campuses #and they said it depends

[eretzyisrael]

by Justin Feldman

As a Jewish student leader at NYU, the widely-viewed House Committee hearing on campus antisemitism last month moved me and articulated the isolation that my Jewish peers and I have been experiencing, simply for partaking in higher education as Jews. From the barring of Rachel Beyda from student government at UCLA in 2015, to Jewish students being removed from a sexual assault survivors organization at SUNY New Paltz in 2022, to last month’s testimonies of exclusion, this discriminatory pattern has proven potent. I’ve unfortunately been no exception.

During the same period President Liz Magill of Penn and President Claudine Gay of Harvard yielded to pressure to resign for their comments on campus “call(s) for Jewish genocide”, I was sent a “Vote to Dismiss and Terminate Position” email, as a Student Justice for New York University’s Graduate Student Council (GSC). My student council president was calling to remove me, one of the only Jewish students in NYU’s student government.

Fabricated “technicalities” brought in bad faith were invoked to falsely accuse me of the unauthorized use of GSC’s name in my resolution, even though my use of the GSC name was solely used as an identifier for my position. I was clear that I was not claiming to speak for anyone but myself and the resolution’s cosponsors.

The true, underlying reason that prompted my removal was that my resolution, which defined and “condemned the endorsement, promotion, or excusing of civilian murder (terrorism) in academia”, undermined the expressions — and by relation the stature — of a number of our radical student senators and their pro-Hamas student backers. In particular, my resolution cited famous justifications, praises, and denials of the October 7th Hamas terrorist attacks by unnamed faculty, student leaders, and student organizations.

Yet, despite indirectly implicating the aforementioned pro-Hamas groups and individuals like the Faculty/Students for Justice in Palestine (FJP/SJP), the resolution also included condemnations of both recent Islamophobic and antisemitic hate crimes and proposed universally beneficial safety measures on hate crime reporting and transparency on free speech.

Not only were these reforms voted down in early stages, contrary to various antisemitic resolutions that passed. I was also singled out by my council president for removal weeks later – simply for voicing opposition to extremist support for terror on campus.

A comparison of articles on “removal” of councilmembers, from the publicly available NYU GSAS GSC Constitution & Bylaws, ratified Spring 2020 (left), and the NYU GSAS GSC Constitution and Bylaws, secretly modified and never voted on for ratification – uploaded to the GSC Drive on December 10, 2023 (right).

Despite notifying administrators and our SGA Elections Commission officials in advance of these offenses, no actions were taken to prevent this inconsistent and discriminatory vote from being carried out. I was removed by less than half of the attending councilmembers.

Unlike Dr. Gay and Dr. Magill, I was not accused of dehumanizing any group, nor subjecting certain people to visible double standards. I, myself, became the target of clear double standards for humanizing myself and my Jewish community amid the backdrop of peers chanting for the very genocidal rhetoric that these former administrators failed to distinguish as violatory.

But sounding this alarm about NYU isn’t just about me, or the brutal and carefully planned murder, rape, and kidnapping of over a thousand Israeli Jewish and Arab citizens. As I stated in my last GSC meeting before being voted out by less than half of our attending council: the October 7th terror attacks targeted citizens of more than 40 different countries across continents that came to Israel.

At NYU, an elite institution with an abundance of global campuses and students attending from all over the world, I could not fathom how so many in my student council – including students from affected countries – could downplay the effect that this moral collapse had on our physical safety.

I witnessed the consequences of unchecked sympathy for terror firsthand. In November at NYU’s Bobst Library, I saw the aftermath of an antisemitic hate crime in real time, where a Jewish student was called slurs and physically assaulted for wearing Israeli and American flags in NYU’s Bobst Library. Security personnel did nothing for minutes on end. The perpetrator was eventually detained by NYPD and released hours later – photographed entering the same library the very next day. 

In Washington Square Park, Jewish students (including myself) were physically threatened by an inebriated man multiple times over the course of months, calling us “animals”, saying “f*** all you Jews”, spitting, and threatening physical attack. Many of us were just wearing a kippah or a Magen David necklace around campus.

These examples are drops in the ocean in the vast record of hate crimes that Jewish-Americans disproportionately face, compared to any other minority group per capita in the U.S. and beyond.

As we saw in the case of Liz Magill and Claudine Gay’s resignations, what campus antisemitism reveals is the underlying moral failure of our elite institutions (and society) to equally enforce many things: free speech, fair admissions, transparent financing, just hiring practices, and accountable student conduct.

What my story of removal from NYU’s Graduate Student Council also illuminates is that this fight is just as much a battle to restore my generation’s recognition of a “shared humanity” – including Jewish humanity – as it is a battle to save liberal values in higher education and our country.

#justin feldman #nyu #antisemitism

[mightyflamethrower]

At the end of the year, we are on the razor’s edge of many things that soon may blow up.

Americans are far beyond President Joe Biden’s serial untruths of some eight years that he never discussed Hunter Biden’s various get-rich-quick schemes.

All were predicated on the perception of foreign interests purchasing from the Biden family the influence of then-senator, vice president, and possibly soon-to-be President Joe Biden.

The Bidens now risk exposure to criminal charges of multimillion-dollar tax fraud, perjury, influence selling, and bribery as congressional committees and a special prosecutor unravel years of tangled-up quid pro quos.

A newly indicted Hunter remains reckless and unpredictable. He continues to publicly blame his mounting legal problems on everyone and everything other than his own selfish excesses.

Hunter deliberately involves his family and may even bring down his own father. His tax lawyers have previously threatened to call President Joe Biden to testify on his behalf under oath.

He continues to court public scandal by hawking amateurish “representational” paintings to the quid-pro-quo wealthy and wannabes wishing clout with the White House.

His laptop messages reveal a prodigal son angry that his bagman services were never fully appreciated by his familial beneficiaries.

Hunter’s wayward laptop is a felonious trove of drug-addled, illicit Petronian excess and sex, interspliced with his self-incriminating family communications on the distributions of pay-for-play payoffs.

Hunter’s business aides will be called back to elaborate on their already incriminating testimonies.

The contents of Joe Biden’s various alias emails will soon see new scrutiny.

Given Biden’s physical and ethical frailties, age, and bad polling, the left-wing media and Democratic hierarchy may cease circling the wagons around him. Instead, some may fuel the effort to sandbag a 2024 Biden candidacy by releasing or even leaking incriminating evidence.

Harvard President Claudine Gay’s tenure is even more tenuous than Biden’s. Harvard can either claim to be the nation’s preeminent academic institution or continue to protect a plagiarist as president—not both.

It can profess to be at the center of academia’s moral and intellectual universe, but not if its president cannot punish those on campus who daily call for the destruction of Israel and the genocide of the Jewish people. Gay cannot lie to Congress that Harvard in the past has also allowed “hate speech” against entire groups the way it now allows against Jews.

Nor is it sustainable for Gay to fob off calls for her resignation as “racist.” In fact, the more the public learns about her academic career, the more she seems to be a lifetime beneficiary, not a victim of racially-weighted policies.

Since the October 7 Hamas massacre of 1,200 Jews, anti-Israeli/pro-Hamas protests, often violent, have swept the Western world, particularly in the big cities and on campuses of America.

Protestors no longer distinguish being anti-Israeli from being anti-Jewish. Now they just openly mouth anti-Semitic chants and harass individual Jews.

Almost every hallowed monument—from the Lincoln Memorial to the White House gates, nearly every cherished national icon from the famed Christmas tree in New York’s Rockefeller Center to New York’s Naivety scene, and our most famous infrastructure from the Manhattan Bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge—has either been swarmed, defaced, or disrupted by pro-Hamas demonstrators.

Americans are growing weary of these escalating protests for a variety of reasons. Most remember that the October 7 war started not with Israeli preemptive attacks on an independent Gaza, but only after Hamas killers launched a sneak attack to commit atrocities against Jews residing in Israel.

The current war is waged between a constitutional state of free elections and a cruel, autocratic terrorist clique.

Indeed, Hamas has refused negotiations over a ceasefire that would have led to internationally conducted free elections for the people of Gaza—something forbidden by enriched Hamas kingpins ensconced in luxury abroad.

Many of the loudest and most violent anti-Jewish protestors in the U.S. are immigrants, green card holders, or on student visas. That fact is confusing to Americans.

Why would those who have fled despotic regimes in the Middle East to study, work, or reside in a free America, once safely here, rally for the very dictatorships they left behind and apparently do not wish to return to?

Why trash the very foundation and values of their American hosts that ensure their newfound freedoms?

For weeks, the American people have been relatively silent as they digested these ongoing catastrophes. But at some point, their patience will run out.

Americans will then collectively conclude that Joe Biden has never been truthful about vast ill-gotten funds that have enriched his family; that Harvard is no longer preeminent or even prestigious; and that people who do not like us, our laws, and our values should try cheering on the work of Hamas from their own homes.